Cris Arreola defeats Manuel Quezada by unanimous decision

Cris Arreola needed something more sensational than that.

Outweighing his fellow heavyweight Manuel Quezada by nearly 30 pounds, Arreola (29-2) was in need of a statement victory against his anonymous foe from Wasco. Riverside’s Arreola was awarded the victory by unanimous decision, but the prevailing post-fight statement was that this guy just might never get there.

Arreola, who’s been fashioned by his promoter as a future world champion, couldn’t knock Quezada down until the ninth round (when he did it twice), but his middle-round sluggishness returned afterward, and even after he knocked Quezada (29-6) down for a third time in the 12th, Arreola had to settle for only his fourth victory by decision in 31 bouts.

Judges Barry Druxman and Marty Denkin gave Arreola a 118-107 victory, and judge Jonathan Davis scored it 117-108.

On the heels of losses within the last year to world heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko and the smaller former world cruiserweight champ Tomasz Adamek, Arreola can’t use Friday’s victory before a small crowd at Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario, Calif., as a platform to pronounce himself as world-class.

He graded the performance a C-minus, complaining left hand pain caused him to severely restrict the use of his jab from the third round on, and blaming right-hand pain from his ninth-round pounding of Quezada’s head for muting a knockout.

“Manny can take a punch and he has good defense,” Arreola said.

Arreola’s promoter Dan Goossen, asked where he goes from after the unconvincing triumph, said, “We’re going to keep him busy, HBO or not. We need to have him fight four or five times a year.”

Translation: more no-names.

Arreola, 29, didn’t flinch in delivering self-criticism, speaking through a cut lip to bemoan, “I got caught with stupid punches. I know better than that, than to get hit with a jab like that.”

Quezada, like Adamek before him, tried to rely on more activity to deal with a man who weighed in Thursday at 256 pounds. A good combination to Arreola’s face revealed some fatigue, and the dull seventh and eighth rounds had Arreola getting grades far worse than C-minus.

He dropped Quezada with a barrage in the ninth, though, and almost ended the bout with another knockdown produced by three successive lefts. A big left uppercut at the bell further hurt Quezada.

In the 12th, Arreola sent Quezada back to the canvas with a hard right in the final minute.

“I could’ve done a lot better,” Arreola said. “This was important. I wanted to put on a great show.”

Earlier, Riverside welterweight Josesito Lopez improved to 27-3 with a unanimous-decision victory over Colorado’s Marvin Cordova Jr. (21-2-1). The judges awarded Lopez a 77-74, 78-73, 78-73 decision, assisted by a one-point deduction from Cordova in the eighth round.

Lopez’s activity and superior boxing skills won him the bout, though it appeared he was helped by the break he was given to recover by the eighth-round low blow as Cordova inflicted a few hard shots to the head during the flurry.

“I’m feeling good, but I might have to ice [myself],” Lopez said, after sustaining a fourth-round low blow that triggered a warning from referee Pat Russell.

lance.pugmire@latimes.com