By Elisinio Castillo

Argentine welterweight Fabian "TNT" Maidana took a step up in class in comparison to his past opponents, and secured a ten round unanimous decision over experienced former world champion Johan Perez.

The fight was one of the major featured fights of the card that was held at the event center "La Macarena" in Medellin, Colombia, in the framework of the World Boxing Association's Convention, held this week.

Fabian, who is the younger brother of former two division world champion Marcos "El Chino" Maidana, overcame a difficult test with Perez - a fighter who was interim-super lightweight  champion of the World Boxing Association. Maidana fought off a tough opponent and put a lot of emotion into the fight.

Maidana won with scorecards of 97-93, 97-93 and 96-94, in a match full of emotion, in which there were no knockdowns, but plenty of strength on the part of both fighters where they both delivered with everything in the ring.

With this victory, Maidana improved to 14-0, with 10 knockouts, while Venezuelan Perez saw his record drop to 22-5-2, with 15 wins on the fast track.

On the undercard, Colombian lightweight Solano Yeis 12-0, 8 KOs) won by unanimous eight round decision over Venezuelan Tony Gómez 6-5-1, 5 KO's), as a defense of his Fedebol 135 pound title, which is endorsed by the WBA.

Also, Mayerlin Rivas retained her World Boxing Association female bantamweight title with a majority draw decision to push her record to 15-3-2 with 10 knockouts.

Rivas had her way early in the fight by flickering her jab and controlling the distance and tempo of the fight but Cordero came on strong in the mid rounds by darting in with her quick feet and being the first to throw.

Rivas was very game though and she got the crowd to its feet with her great show of heart as she endured punishment from Cordero late in the fight while not going down, despite being hurt by the game challenger.