Unbeaten world-ranked bantamweight Melvin “Melo” Lopez (18-0, 10 KOs) of Nicaragua decisioned Aldimar Silva (21-14, 13 KOs) of Brazil over ten rounds on Friday night at the Bryan Glazer Family JCC Auditorium in Tampa, Florida. The judges’ scorecards all read 100-88 in favor of Lopez. Lopez dominated the action dropping Silva in rounds two and six.

It seemed that Lopez was on his way to stopping Silva on a few occasions but Silva to his credit weathered the storm. Silva was unable to make the contracted weight for the fight. The two sides came to an agreement at a higher weight than what was originally contracted. The extra weight could have played a factor in Silva absorbing a lot of the punishment dished out by Lopez.

Lopez is being groomed to follow in the championship footsteps of his WRAM Boxing (William Ramirez) stablemates world champions Cristofer Rosales and Felix Alvarado. Lopez is just 21 but already has won multiple major regional titles and is world ranked by multiple world sanctioning bodies in the bantamweight division.