Gavin Rees stopped Derry Mathews in the ninth round to retain his European lightweight title in Sheffield.
Welshman adds the British title to his European crown
Gavin Rees stopped Derry Mathews in the ninth round to retain his European lightweight title in Sheffield.
Rees appeared to be troubled by Mathews in the early rounds and was wobbled in the first, but the Welshman soon found his range to add the British title to his European crown.
The dogged Mathews made a confident start and skipped neatly out of range before landing crisp right hands, while he tagged Rees with jabs in the second.
The Liverpudlian lost his composure in the third when an accidental head clash left him with a cut eye - with the first fight between the two having been abandoned at the same stage after Mathews suffered a broken nose in a similar incident.
However Mathews withstood big body shots and the pair exchanged vicious rights in a fiery fifth.
Assault
Rees appeared to possess more firepower and tried to bully his bloodied foe in the sixth, but Mathews stubbornly traded until a looping right had him badly shaken at the end of the eighth.
'The Rock' continued his assault in the ninth and a right-left combination sent Derry to the deck, and the referee waved it off when he rose groggily to his feet.
Kerry Hope lost his European middleweight belt after he was stopped by Grzegorz Proksa.
Hope had won the title from the Pole with a shock majority points decision back in March.
However Proksa made no mistake in the rematch - with a big swinging right to the chin sending Hope to the canvas in the eighth.
The Welshman bravely attempted to get back up but he quickly dropped to one knee with the referee waving the fight off as he stood for a second time.
