Teenager Vito Mielnicki gave a solid performance on a big stage on Christmas evening.
The 19-year-old welterweight prospect outclassed Nicholas DeLomba before finally stopping him in the 10th and final round on national TV at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, not far from where Mielnicki grew up.
Mielnicki, fighting in his first scheduled 10-rounder, fought behind his jab from the opening bell in an effort to keep DeLomba at a distance. And when DeLomba got close, Mielnicki (10-1, 7 KOs) generally held or spun out of harm’s way.
The strategy worked, as DeLomba (16-4, 5 KOs) had difficulty getting close enough to his younger opponent to land punches consistently. That made the fight easy to score.
However, while Mielnicki landed more than enough power shots to win rounds, the fight was largely uneventful except for moments in Rounds 3 and 10.
Mielnicki stunned DeLomba with a counter right about a minute into Round 3 and followed with an extended barrage of hard punches in an effort to finish the job. DeLomba, whose toughness is more impressive than his skill set, survived.
After that, Mielnicki went back to the safety of fighting from the outside and seemed to be on his way to a one-sided, if dull decision victory.
Then, about midway through Round 10, he landed a big right hand that hurt DeLomba. The dazed fighter remained on feet, endured another flurry and seemed to be on his way to surviving again. However, his trainer signaled to the referee that enough was enough.
The official time of the stoppage was 1:49 of Round 10. Mielnicki had won all nine completed rounds on two cards and eight on the third at the time of the stoppage.
Mielnicki has now won two consecutive fights since he was outpointed by James Martin this past April.
In preliminary bouts, junior middleweight prospect Joey Spencer (14-0, 10 KOs) stopped Limberth Ponce (18-5, 11 KOs) in the fifth round of a scheduled eight-round bout.
And Cuban Yoelvis Gomez (5-0, 5 KOs) knocked out the popular Clay Collard (9-6-3, 4 KOs) only 2 minutes, 11 seconds into their scheduled six-round middleweight fight.