Sadam Ali remained undefeated tonight, as the welterweight prospect graduated to contender in the opening bout of the  HBO Boxing After Dark broadcast with a dominant win over the tough Francisco Santana via unanimous decision with scores of 97-93, 97-93 and 100-90.

This was the classic fight of styles make fights and judges make decision based off tastes as the internet had a wide variety of scores, but the most accurate seemed to fall into the category of 97-93 for Ali.

Santana essentially tried to walk down Ali, who had mixed success over the first couple of rounds , but was most importantly caught with a big flurry of shot that hit his body that seemed to slow him down. This early investment in the body seemed to create the late cushion needed for Ali to get the win late as he was able to stick in move in the middle rounds to evade Santana’s aggression

Santana not to be outdone wobbled Ali in the eighth round as it looked like Santana might just pull off the upset, but Ali survived the ninth round only to win the tenth round and hold off Santana.

For Ali, this should put him in a short list of new faces in welterweight division that could via for an interesting match-up with some of the rugged vets.