After a long career, first at light welter before dropping down a weight class, Jon Thaxton won the vacant European Lightweight title with a third round knockout of Spain's Juan Carlos Diaz Melero last night at The Showground in Norwich, England.

Despite Melero having been a European Champ previously, Thaxton had fought the better competition of the two and that edge in experience showed as the southpaw controlled the pace of the bout and avoided much of the Spaniard's efforts.

After having won the first two frames, Thaxton began to tighten his bead on Melero and suddenly floored the visitor with a perfect counter right hook that stopped the bout at 2:29 of third.

Thaxton improves to 34-8 (19) while picking up the vacant European Lightweight title and Melero drops to 36-2 (19), both losses by knockout in European title bouts.

Danny McIntosh, 8-0 (3), won the vacant English Light Heavyweight crown with a seventh round stoppage of Steve Spartacus, 19-5 (11), in a competitive scrap.

Welterweight prospect John O'Donnell, 19-1 (8), continued his comeback with a fourth round finishing of Sergejs Savrinovics, 4-9-1 (2), and former WBO Heavyweight Champion Herbie Hide, 45-4 (42), returned to fight in England for the first time since 2004 to crush Aleksejs Kosobokovs, 12-10 (5), in the third.

Herbie Hide will have his first fight in Britain for four years in a non-title eight round bout at the Norfolk Showground in Norwich on Saturday, 4th October.

The former world heavyweight champion boxes in an eight-round bout against Aleksejs Kosobokovs (Latvia), who has won two of his last three fights by first round stoppage and went the distance with Willi Fischer (Germany) last year. More...