Dereck Chisora prevailed over David Price in an exhilarating firefight, stopping the Liverpudlian after four rounds of action.
Chisora made a fast start and actually dominated the jab exchanges, as Price struggled to find space and set up his own attacks.
The Londoner was methodical yet relentless in his approach as he prevented the Scouser from gaining any forward momentum and cut off all avenues of escape with his swarming style.
A furious exchange in the dying seconds of the third brought the breathless crowd to their feet, as Chisora – seemingly on the verge of flooring Price with a devastating series of punches – was himself buckled by a right uppercut.
However, Chisora recovered quickly, dropping Price with a short hook on the inside, before Price’s corner intervened to save their man from sustaining any further punishment.
Lee Selby outpointed Ricky Burns via majority decision with a solitary scorecards of 115-115 overruled by two tallies of 116-112 and 116-113 in the Welshman’s favour.
By all accounts, the Scotsman made a relatively slow start as Selby’s superior accuracy and slippery movement paid dividends in the early rounds.
However, Burns began to up the tempo, pushing forward with increased aggression and combinations, as the bout degenerated into a closely-fought slugfest.
The Coatbridge native, a former three-time world champion, was evidently throwing with bad intentions and enjoyed intermittent success with his flurries.
However, on occasion, Burns smothered his own work as ‘Lightning’ responded with some sneaky counters and Burns struggled to find the decisive breakthrough in the championship rounds.
Selby, meanwhile, was able to withstand a frenzied Burns assault in the final round, albeit shipping a thunderous right hand for his troubles, and was ultimately declared the winner.
Lawrence Okolie was crowned the new EBU European champion after stopping Yves Ngabu in the seventh round.
In a dour, messy affair characterised by lots of smothering and not much clean work, Ngabu was the aggressor throughout but struggled to find any meaningful openings at close range as he was consistently outmuscled by his counterpart.
The bout became increasingly scrappier and took on a stop-start nature, as Okolie frequently attempted to bowl over some hail-mary right hands but was forced to spoil against the onrushing Ngabu.
Apart from when Ngabu was briefly stung in the second round, it looked like this routine would continue for the full distance until a venomous volley of shots from Okolie ended the fight in the seventh rounds.
Conor Benn also successfully retained his WBA continental welterweight championship with a chilling fourth-round stoppage over Belgium’s Steve Jamoye.
The Belgian was applying pressure from the outset as Benn was largely content to circle his counterpart and pepper him with combinations.
Jamoye was certainly game throughout and attempted to rough Benn up, but Benn remained composed on the back foot, consistently digging in hurtful shots to the body before a venomous series of punches in the fourth round finally ended the fight.
Article by: Navi Singh
Follow Navi on Twitter at: @DarkMan________