Light heavyweight beltholder Tavoris Cloud retained his title with a hard-fought, closely contested unanimous decision over former RING champ Glen Johnson in the co-featured bout to the Devon Alexander-Andreas Kotelnik fight on Saturday in St. Louis.

The two aggressive light heavyweights went at it from the opening bell to the final round, often trading the rounds in which they edged the other. However Cloud, who won by unanimous scores of 116-112, landed the harder punches throughout the fight.

Cloud (21-0, 18 knockouts) was out-jabbed in the rounds he lost but he teed off on Johnson (50-14-3, 34 KOs) in the rounds he won and he hurt the 41-year-old veteran with a left hook to the temple in the fifth round.