Olympic medalist Joshua Buatsi cruised to a unanimous decision victory at the Resorts World Arena, Birmingham and live on Sky Sports. The undefeated light heavyweight earned scorecards of 97-94, 98-92, and 100-90 from the judges, impressively shutting down a determined Pawel Stepien.

Buatsi was measured and economical in the first half of the fight, feeling Stepien out as he shook off the cobwebs from over a year out of the ring and stopped Stepien from having any opportunity to land his right hand. 

The Olympic medalist grew into the fight as the rounds went on, loosening up his offense and coming into range to trade punches more often.

Stepien never took any real chances to change the tide of what became a technical boxing match for most of the contest.

Despite 12 months out of the ring, Buatsi controlled the fight, and outboxed Stepien in just about every single round.

While he wasn't pleased with his failure to get a win inside the distance, Buatsi was happy to have banked in a full distance fight.

“I’ve been out of the ring for almost a year, so I needed the 10 rounds. I wanted to knock him out, and I’m disappointed I didn’t, but we got the win. If I had lost it, everything would have changed, so I had to be smart,” Buatsi told Sky Sports after the fight.

Having removed the ring-rust from his extensive layoff and beaten a previously-undefeated opponent, Buatsi is now in position for options ranging from huge domestic clashes to world title contention.

Buatsi holds the WBA's top ranking at 175-pounds. The current WBA champion, Dmitry Bivol, is heading to a potential September rematch with Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez. Should Buatsi remain unbeaten, he could very well find himself in line for the winner.