Michael Ramabeletsa blasted Ryan Walker away in one round to become English super-bantamweight champion
It was an explosive start and finish as classy Michael Ramabeletsa (17-17) stopped young Ryan Walker (8-1) at 2:05 of the opening round to become the new English super-bantamweight champion.
It's the second time that the Preston puncher had fought an 8-0 prospect for the English strap and ended his heartache at losing on split decision to Josh Kennedy 20 months ago at the same setting in a fight that many thought Ramabeletsa had done enough to win after having the Folkestone man down in the seventh.
South African 'Trouble Maker', 36 from Preston, came into the fight with a losing record and inflicted the first loss on 'The Lion's' record with his blistering performance.
Walker, aged 26 from Newham, London, will benefit from the experience and will likely return to title fights in 2019.
In the headlining fight Wadi Camacho (21-7) claimed the vacant Commonweath strap after his fight with Arfan Iqbal (12-1-1) went to the scorecards after Iqbal fell through the ropes in round seven and coudn't continue.
Barcelona-born Camacho avenged his previous loss to Iqbal 16 months ago to land the Commonwealth crown as the three ringside officials scored the contest 69-63, 69-63, 68-64 to the 'Machoman'.
On the undercard, Martin Foru (2-0) won 40-35 after dropping Raimonds Sniedze in round four.
Xhujo Vrenozi defeated Bulgarian Angel Emilov 59-56.
It was another fantastic performance from Liam Dillon as he moved to 8-0 with a victory over the ambitious Michael Horabin, who always comes to win. Referee scored it 59-55 after six-rounds.
Featherweight Brandon Ball halted the durable Zigurds Krauklis just 33 seconds into rounf four to move up to 4-0.
Disappointment for Mo Gharib (3-1) as he suffered knockdowns in the first and third that saw a strong Dean Evans (8-26-2) get the nod 38-36 from the away corner. It was a barnstormer of a fight that saw both boxers hurt, but the knockdowns were too much of a defecit for the London lightweight to overcome and droped to his first professional defeat.
It was a dominant performance from super-lightweight ID Hill (8-2-2) as he halted Reece Smith (3-3) at 2:30 of round two.
Paul Greenidge improved to 3-0 with a shutout points victory over the experienced Lewis Van Poetsch (7-86-1).
There was further disappointment for Maidstone man Chris Lawrence (9-2) as Dmytro Kostenko (2-8-1) outworked him over four-rounds picking up the win on the ref’s scorecards at 40-37.
Haisam Ali (2-0) claimed a 40-36 victory over MJ Hall (0-23-1), who weathered some early heavy shots in a very confident and poised performance from Londoner Ali.
James Constanzo (2-0) doubled his win tally with 40-36 victory over Italian-born Londoner Victor Edagha (0-45-2), who is a lit better than his record suggests.