Former world champion Joshua ‘The Hitter’ Clottey improved his career record to 39-4 (22 KO’s) with a unanimous points victory over Mexico’s Jorge Silva in a junior middleweight bout in Houston, Texas.

Two judges scored the bout 100-90, with the third scoring it 98-92 to give the Ghanaian a lopsided decision over the journeyman Mexican.

The fight came on the undercard of the Saul Alvarez-James Kirkland fight, which champ Saul won with a decisive third round knockout. In a better world Joshua should have been Canelo’s opponent, but an injury to the Mexican stalled their fight last December, and after he recovered the opportunity rather fell to Kirkland- who patently embarrassed himself on the night.

Instead Clottey was left with an easy opponent, who he picked off at will, winning all ten rounds on the scorecard of two of the judges. Clottey is a former world welterweight champ, and also fought Manny Pacquiao in 2010- but that was his worst career showing, saying later that some okro stew before the fight had given him a ‘running stomach’.

This win keeps him in the top echelons of the world’s current middleweights, but it’s left to be seen whether his camp can summon the clout to land Joshua the world title fight his talents surely deserve.