Natasha Jonas dominated as she added a second world title to her collection.
The 38-year-old super-welterweight was attempting to make it two global honours in two fights having clinched a maiden world bauble earlier this year.
Jonas stopped Chris Namus in Manchester back in February to clinch the WBO title and on Saturday, at the M&S Bank Arena in her home city of Liverpool, ‘Miss GB’ unified the division with a straightforward points win over Patricia Berghult.
Berghult, going into the fight, was the WBC champion and Jonas now owns the green and gold belt after a 100-92 shut out on two cards and 99-91 once.
She started well and forced Jonas to stay switched on throughout the early stages, but then the hometown hero – who urged the city to stick together in the aftermath –– began to break through, working up the levels and jolted the Swedish lady before being roared home to a unification victory by her vociferous support on the waterfront.
Jonas stepped up from lightweight, having previously boxed as low as super-featherweight in her career, for the aforementioned world title win earlier this year – but when speaking to Sky Sports after the victory, she acknowledged that those days are long behind her.
She said:
“I honestly didn’t think it could get any better than Manchester, but tonight just blew me away.
“I am so humbled by all the support.
“I thought I had lost a couple of rounds if I am honest, but I can never really judge it.”
Cries were coming from the corner of Natasha Jonas at times to step the levels up or tighten the guard, just to keep her on her toes.
She added:
“You can hear Joe [Gallagher, her trainer] giving me hell all the way through. I keep asking Ben [Shalom, the promoter] and he keeps delivering and all I have to do is play my part and up until now, I have.
“There’s two more belts to get and maybe the opportunity to be a two-weight or three-weight champion because it is no secret I will never be a super-featherweight again.”
'𝐖𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐧 𝐋𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐨𝐥.' 🥺❤️
An emotional Natasha Jonas is now a 𝙙𝙤𝙪𝙗𝙡𝙚 champ! 👑👑
@boxxerpic.twitter.com/cE3vmH3cCO— Sky Sports Boxing (@SkySportsBoxing) September 3, 2022
In the final fight of the night, Paddy Lacey outpointed Seamus Devlin over six rounds at middleweight. The fight had been set to happen earlier in the night, but with timings against them, it was forced to wait until after the main event as Lacey moved to 7-0 (1 KO) with a win by 59 points to 56 on referee John Latham’s scorecard.