Dennis Hobson promoted a card in front of a crowd in the car park of the Sheffield Arena, and in the main event, Derby’s Myron Mills retained his English Lightweight title with a tight, but deserved unanimous points win over Lucas Ballingall.
The bill was the first on Fightzone, a new boxing app offering live British and international boxing and archives.
Mills won the belt in May 2018, stopping Marcus Ffrench in four, and hadn’t boxed since November 2019, making a majority decision defence against Kane Baker.
His sole defeat came back in October 2018, losing a close British title eliminator on the cards against Gavin Gwynne.
Portsmouth’s Ballingall was coming off his first professional loss, an eight round points defeat in Belarus against Russia’s Arslan Magomedov.
It was a fast paced affair here, and the pair were pretty evenly matched throughout, but it was Mills’ more eye-catching shots that seemingly kept him one step ahead of his challenger.
Ballingall was shaken up by Mills in the fifth round after taking some heavy shots, but he quickly shook the crisis off, and the pair traded leather for the majority of the contest.
Mills’ blows though had more volume and purchase on them than Ballingall’s, and this just about reflected on the scorecards as the fight reached its conclusion. It was a battle that could have gone either way, but there were no real arguments when the scores were announced.
Two scores of 96-95, and a third at 96-94 reflected how tight the rounds were, as Mills notched a second defence of his belt.
Anthony Tomlinson had been unable to build on a breakthrough February 2020 ninth round stoppage win over Stewart Burt on a Matchroom show at the Sheffield Arena due mainly to the pandemic, and he made his return on this bill, taking his six rounder against the winless Genadij Krajevskij on the referee’s scorecard.
‘The Truth’ moved to 13-0 with a 60-54 verdict from referee, Andy Brook.
Tomlinson is seemingly on a collision course with James Moorcroft, who was last in action in January 2020, losing his unbeaten record via fifth round stoppage to fellow unbeaten, Martin Harkin, but the Wigan Welterweight got back to winning ways here, winning all six rounds against the rough and tough MJ Hall.
At Cruiserweight, Norfolk based Iain ‘Badman’ Martell made it ten wins from as many starts, as he halted the usually durable Elvis Dube with a body shot in the second round of their scheduled four rounder.
There were several debutants on the bill, and former three-time Kickboxing world champion, Katie Healy, made a successful start to life in professional boxing, as the Birmingham Super Bantamweight took all four rounds against Slovakia’s Claudia Ferenczi, who had only been stopped four times in 77 defeats.
Telford Bantamweight Bradley Thompson floored Steven Maguire in the opening round of their four rounder, and eventually halted the Lancastrian in the final frame.
The rest of the first-timers all won on points over four rounds. At Middleweight, Rob Magill took a 40-36 verdict over Dale Arrowsmith, and at Super Middleweight, Nathan Cawood clinched a 39-37 sucess against Kearon Thomas.
