Former Elite XC Lightweight Champion KJ Noons made his return to the boxing ring a successful one with a unanimous decision victory over Alejandro Bogarin (8-6-3) last Thursday night at the Expo Center in El Monte, California.

Noons actually dropped Bogarin in the first frame, but could not finish him off. He did, however, dominate most of the match en route to the decision win, which was his first in the sport since defeating Anthony Cannon at the Chumash Casino in Santa Ynez, Calif., in June 2007 (also by unanimous decision).

Bogarin wasn’t necessarily the stiffest test for Noons in his return. He had previously been knocked out six times and was coming into this bout fresh off a first round knockout suffered at the hands of Francisco Santana in July.

Nonetheless, with the win Noons moves his professional boxing record to an impressive 8-1 with five knockouts.

It’s unclear at this time whether he’ll continue to box or make the move back to mixed martial arts following the demise of his previous employer, Elite XC. Even before the demise of Elite XC he was taking a break from MMA after being stripped of his 160-pound title because he and the organization couldn’t come to terms on a rematch with Nick Diaz.

But now that the promotion is no more it might not be long before he’s back in a cage fighting MMA. Clearly, whatever happens with the fighter contracts from Pro Elite Inc. will have a lot to do with the next step for KJ.

Regardless, it seems very likely we haven’t seen the last of him in either sport.