Dean Francis defended his Commonwealth light-heavyweight title after a unanimous points victory against Michael Gbenga in a rather stale encounter in Bolton on Saturday night.

The 33-year-old from Basingstoke took some time to feel his way into the the fight in the early rounds against the Ghanaian, but found his range in the second half of the contest.

At the end of the 12-round contest all three judges scored the bout for Francis by scores of 117-112 twice and 118-110.

In a cagey opening three rounds there was little venom from either man with Francis restricting himself to almost sole use of the left jab against Gbenga, who also seemed reluctant to make any attacking moves.

The pattern of the bout continued into the fourth although Francis began to open up a little and landed one clean straight left hand to keep himself ahead.

Gbenga tried to come back in the next but Francis was alert to the challenger's clumsy yet energetic approach and ended the round with a flourish after connecting with a rare right-hand punch - understandable due to his previous injury problems on his right shoulder.

Technically Francis was clearly the superior fighter and looked happy to bide his time and pick off the one-paced Gbenga, who was now starting to look rather desperate.

The defending champion's performance could only be described as workmanlike and was hardly winning over the crowd despite edging the majority of the rounds.

In the seventh round Francis, who had largely been resorting to his one-arm tactics, began to land with a flurry of combination punches and was now taking full control of the contest.

The bout eventually came to life in the eighth as the wild and powerful Gbenga began to rally and although this gave Francis genuine cause for concern, his smart footwork kept him away from most of the danger.

Francis maintained his grip on the fight in the following round as the pace dropped once more and with just three rounds remaining, Gbenga needed to pull something out of the locker.

But it just did not look like happening as Francis remained alert and in the 11th round he found openings in Gbenga's defence to land a couple of good lefts and a right in a quick combination and the result was now looking academic.

The final round saw little change with Gbenga frequently punching at thin air as Francis connected with more clean hits and the Englishman cruised to a fairly comfortable, if uninspiring, points victory.