By Scott Gilfoid: Lightweight contender Kevin Mitchell (33-1, 24 KO’s) defeated journeyman Felix Lora (14-9-5, 8 KO’s) by a 10 round points decision on Friday night at the York Hall, in Bethnal Green, London, UK. Referee Richard James Davies scored it 98-92 for the 27-year-old Mitchell.

Lora was dropped once in the fight in the 2nd round. Other than that, there really wasn’t any excitement in the fight because Mitchell played it safe after tasting Lora’s power in the 4th round. Mitchell went into shut down mode after that and mostly ran and jabbed. Had this been a better fighter like Brandon Rios in there with Mitchell, Rios would have knocked Mitchell out cold.

In the opening round, Mitchell mostly controlled the action with his jabs and an occasional left hook. Lora was wild with throwing huge right hands that had knockout intention on them. However, he was throwing them from too far out to really land anything.

In the 2nd round, Mitchell caught Lora with a big left hook that put him down on the canvas in a heap. He stayed down until the count of seven and got back up and continued to fight. The round turned at that point with Lora out for vengeance, backing Mitchell up and landing huge right hands with Mitchell fighting near the ropes. That was a good comeback from Lora.

In the 3rd and 4th rounds, Mitchell went back to jabbing and using a lot of feints in the Adam Booth manner. However, in the 4th, Lora caught Mitchell with a big looping right hand that almost took his head off. Surprisingly, Mitchell stayed on his feet without hitting the canvas or showing signs of being hut. He got tagged again moments later when Lora caught up to him near the ropes.

In rounds five through seven, Mitchell stopped taking chances and focused on using his jab a lot of movement and feints to keep from getting hit with any more of Lora’s huge shots. It worked well for Mitchell, as he was able to dominate with the jab and an occasional left hook mixed in. However, it wasn’t the domination that you expected from a #1 WBO ranked contender over a journeyman. The 9th and 10th rounds were pretty much the same with Mitchell landing jabs, playing it safe and doing what he needed to do to keep from getting knocked out.

All in all, not impressive performance by Mitchell. He should have been able to knock Lora out but instead he ran after he realized that guy had better power than he did. Mitchell will now face the WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns next in one of those all Brit fights. I can’t pick a winner of that fight because both guys are pretty even. I think Mitchell would lose to a lot of the top lightweights. He lacks power and is nothing special. Jab and move fighters like him are a dime a dozen, and we saw tonight that he’s just another average fighter, short of arm and a tad too thick in the upper body. Mitchell looked like a welterweight tonight and I’d be curious to know much he weighed in the ring. He looked really heavy. I wonder how much longer he’ll be able to make the lightweight division.

In other action on the card:

Bradley Skeete PTS 8 Laszlo Komjathi
Billy Morgan PTS 6 Dan Naylor
Bradley Saunders TKO 3 Jason Nesbitt
Frank Buglioni PT S 4 Ryan Clark