By Keith Idec

NEW YORK – If his dominant performance Saturday night left you wanting to see more of Felix Verdejo as soon as possible, you might have wait longer than you’d like.

The powerful Puerto Rican lightweight contender suffered a left hand injury during the first round of his impressive victory over Ivan Najera that could leave him sidelined for an extended period. The 22-year-old Verdejo (18-0, 13 KOs) said following his unanimous-decision win in The Theater at Madison Square Garden that he’ll soon see a specialist to determine the extent of the hand injury he first suffered during a Dec. 13 technical knockout win against Spain’s Karim El Ouazghari (16-6-2, 4 KOs) in Philadelphia.

“Depending on how the hand feels, we’ll see what’s next for me,” Verdejo said. “My hand hurts a lot. We’re going to the doctor. We’ll see what the specialist says. We just don’t know right now. We’ll go to the doctor and see what happens.”

Verdejo made viewers take notice in his HBO debut against San Antonio’s Najera (16-1, 8 KOs) by producing an often-spectacular display of hand speed and power. The flashy former Olympian dropped Najera with an uppercut in the fifth round and a left hook late in the seventh round en route to winning by huge margins on all three scorecards (100-88, 100-88, 99-89).

Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.