"I'm disappointed in my performance," Peterson said. "I should have taken him out earlier. But he was pretty durable. I hit him with a lot of good shots, but he hung in there."

Judges Jerry Roth and Burt Clements scored the fight 120-108, and Patricia Morse-Jarman had it 119-109, all for Peterson.

After a slow start, Peterson got it into gear as he used his superior hand speed to beat Trejo (19-13-4) to the punch. He was effective doubling up with his left hand and constantly scored with it.

He appeared to hurt his left hand early in the fifth round but said that wasn't an excuse for not finishing off Trejo.

"Yeah, I hurt my left hand, but a lot of fighters get hurt, and they keep going," he said. "I'm a throwback fighter. I wasn't going to let that slow me down. But I shouldn't have let it go the distance. I just gotta go back to the drawing board and get sharper."

Vanes Martirosyan took another step forward in his career, improving to 20-0 after dominating Angel Hernandez and claiming a 10-round unanimous decision in their super welterweight bout.

It appeared it would be a quick night for Martirosyan as he knocked down the smaller Hernandez a minute into the fight with a right uppercut. But Hernandez weathered the storm, and Martirosyan said he hurt his left hand in the third round.

"I should have jabbed more, but I was surprised he took my power," said Martirosyan, who won the fight 100-89 on all three scorecards. "Still, I'm happy I went 10 rounds. I had never gone that far before, so it was good to get my work in."

Martirosyan said he was going to get his left hand checked, and he expected to be ready to fight if Top Rank puts him on the undercard of the Aug. 2 IBF welterweight title fight between Zab Judah and Josh Clottey at the Palms.

Contact reporter Steve Carp at scarp@ reviewjournal.com or 702-387-02913.