Middleweight contender Vito Mielnicki Jr. returned to his home state for another night in the spotlight.
The 23-year-old defeated Poland’s Kamil Gardzielik via 10-round unanimous decision (100-89 3x) Saturday evening at Newark’s Prudential Center.
Mielnicki (21-1-1, 12 KOs) delivered a composed performance despite early success. In the second round, he floored Gardzielik (19-1, 4 KOs) with a right hand after the latter briefly switched to southpaw.
Rather than chase the finish, Mielnicki boxed patiently behind a long jab, mixing in right hands with left uppercuts down the middle and hooks around the elbows. The right hand continued to play an important role down the stretch, though he was unable to hurt him as he had earlier.
Mielnicki said, “I was happy with my performance. This came from working on sticking to the game plan and not getting out of my game plan when I hurt somebody. I felt we did a good job with that.”
“I wanted to use a hard, stiff jab. I felt that we did that really well. I welted up his face early. We set up that double right hand that we worked on in camp.”
“I feel blessed. As a kid, I dreamed of fighting here in the main event.”