Earl calls it a day

Luton lightweight Graham Earl announced his retirement from the ring after a second successive first round defeat on Saturday night.

Lightweight suffers career-ending loss

Luton lightweight Graham Earl announced his retirement from the ring after a second successive first round defeat on Friday night. Earl was stopped in just 69 seconds by Wiltshire's Henry Castle at King's Hall in Bethnal Green, 10 months after Amir Khan did a similar job on the 30-year-old. It was the third successive loss for the former British and Commonwealth champion, and he evidently never recovered fully from the bloody battle with Michael Katsidis for the interim WBO belt in February last year. Earl gave as good as he got in a brutal slugfest that night, but hit the deck twice before he was pulled out by his corner before the sixth round. Nevertheless it proved to be Earl's defining fight, while he can also look back with pride at victories over Bobby Vanzie (twice), Steve Murray (twice) and the excellent European champion Yuri Romanov. On a sad night for British boxing, Gilbert Eastman was left in a critical condition following an eight round stoppage loss to Sam Webb. The light-middleweight, brother of former world title contender Howard, has a suspected blood clot on the brain after suffering his fourth defeat in succession.