Christopher Keane impresses with a stoppage
Walsall's Christopher Keane looked the real deal as he pummelled Hungarian visitor Tamas Toth in two punishing rounds at the Institute in Birmingham.
The Midlands cruiserweight champion and No 1 contender to the English crown battered his never-stopped opponent.
Furious onslaughts from a fired up Keane sent an overwhelmed to the canvas three times in a devastating display on Friday night.
A loaded right uppercut from Keane had already sent a dazed Toth back-pedalling and he put him down with another club of a right hook, then again from a left.
How Toth survived the first round remains one of life's mysteries but Keane was in no mood to take his foot off the gas and made his intentions all-but-clear in the second round.
He switched his attacks to the body and stung Toth's ribs with hooks while swinging into uppercuts that bloodied his nose and primed him for the finish.
Keane levelled him with another left hook but again a game Toth answered the count but, with his face crimson, Dudley's Shaun Messer called for the bell and did the right thing as the referee.
Keane next boxes on home soil at Walsall Town Hall on May 31 in a 10-round contest and, if it's new English champion Matty Askin in the other corner, few would bet against him in this form.
On the undercard, in a light middleweight contest debutant Disney Huni, hailing from Zimbabwe but based in Smethwick, outpointed Bulgarian-born Londoner Danny Dontchev.
Huni used Spiderish reflexes and a long each to see off Dontchev and rattled him with an uppercut in the first round, opening like a house on fire in the third when raining in hooks.
Dontchev survived to the final bell and took a round-and-a-half of his own, but Huni was declared the victor by 39-38.
