By Manuel Perez: Middleweight contender David Lopez (37-12, 23 KOs) put in an impressive performance on Friday night, defeating Colombian Samuel Miller (18-3, 15 KOs) by a 12-round unanimous decision at the Desert Diamond Casino, in Tucson, Arizona. The southpaw Lopez, 30, controlled the bout from the outset, walking Miller down and hitting him with sharp combinations to the head and body.
Other than a few early furious attacks by Miller, Lopez appeared to have an easy time with him. Neither of the fighters was knocked down and the only real excitement in the bout was the handful of low blows that Lopez landed over the course of the bout. Miller, 29, appeared to be the harder puncher of the two, but his accuracy was terrible and his work rate much less than that of Lopez. The final judges’ scores were 118-109, 119-108 and 117-110, all for Lopez.
Miller came out strong in the 1st round, hammering Lopez with hard right hands to the head. Lopez, ranked #4 in the WBC middleweight division, focused more on his defense in the round and tried to block as many shots as possible. However, many of Miller’s power shots got through the defense of Lopez and landed to the head in the round. It was a good start for Lopez, who looked a little like his old form of 2006 when he was considered one of the up and coming middleweight prospects in the division.
Lopez, however, took over the fight starting in the 2nd round, throwing nice combinations to the head and body, moving well around the ring and applying pressure on Miller. When he had Miller backing up, the Colombian was much more manageable as he was unable to fight going backwards or when backed to the ropes. Miller made a couple of nice attacks in the 3rd round, throwing flurries of power shots to the head of Lopez.
The round ended up being close, though, because Lopez landed more overall shots in the round, albeit with much less power than Miller. The movement of Lopez was giving Miller a lot of problems, for it seemed that he was uncomfortable with having to pursue Lopez. In round and five, Miller would continue to make sporadic attacks in which he would throw three to four hard power shots, and then clam up for the next minute or so.
This allowed Lopez to throw his shots with impunity, throwing nice hooks to the body and head. Lopez doesn’t have much in the way of speed or power, but technically, he’s a good fighter. I don’t consider him a top five middleweight, though, but he’s good enough to beat most B-class fighters in the division, and possibly a handful of A-class fighters on a good night. In the 7th round, Lopez landed a nice left hand shot below the belt.
For this, he received a warning, the first during the fight. He easily won the round throwing nice uppercuts to the head and right-left combinations. His body shots were especially powerful and well thrown and seemed to bother Miller a great deal. In the remaining five rounds of the bout, Lopez pounded Miller with good boy shots and uppercuts while blocking many of his own attempts at landing.
By the 12th round, Miller had developed swelling under both eyes and he looked battered. Lopez looked good overall, but he will be in a world of hurt if and when he gets a shot at Kelly Pavlik, the WBC middleweight champion. Lopez probably wouldn’t last more than a few rounds with Pavlik, if that.