Vaughan again

Ben leads the way at the Park Inn as BCB stage back-to-back shows

NORTHAMPTON

FEBRUARY 24 ★★★★★ WHOLE SHOW

BLACK Country Boxing Promotions staged their first show of the year on what was a busy weekend for them, this four-bout offering at the Park Inn Hotel being followed 24 hours later by a show back in Birmingham at the Eastside Rooms.

Nominal bill topper Ben Vaughan hadn’t dropped a single round in his four bouts since joining the paid ranks across town at The Deco back in late 2021, and the 23-yearold southpaw seldom looked in danger of blotting his copybook here in what was a first outing over six. A 60-54 result was his reward at the culmination of 18 minutes against a regular visitor in the guise of Bulgarian Georgi Velichkov.

Local punchers Kai Church and Nico Michael had both secured four-round points victories in their debuts here back in November, lightweight Church shutting out Evesham’s Brett Fidoe and bantam Michael seeing off Brummie Reiss Taylor 39-37, so there was a degree of deja vu when both posted repeat victories by the exact same scores, Michael coming out on top against Bradford’s long-haired and still-winless Jake Pollard and six-footer Church doing likewise, calling the shots throughout and taking every round against Mancunian Liam Fox, for whom it was a fifth successive defeat.

Making his paid bow, Northampton mechanic Shaun Morton went in with Manchester’s busy Josh Cook, but despite his best attempts had to settle for a share of the spoils.

The Luton born man, managed by Spencer Mccracken and employed locally by Jaguar Land Rover, had been hoping to hand Cook a 22nd straight defeat, but it wasn’t to be and Newark’s Kevin Parker, scoring throughout from ringside for triallist referee Ryan Churchill tallied 38-38.