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Brad Pauls won the British middleweight title with a stunning 12th-round stoppage of Nathan Heaney in their rematch.
They produced a classic domestic contest for the same title earlier in 2024, when both fighters thought that they had done enough but their fight was scored a draw. In their rematch at Birmingham’s Sports World Arena, Pauls didn’t leave it up to the judges and instead pressed the action from the first bell, having previously been guilty of a slow start.
Heaney controlled his challenger at first with his jab, but after being dropped in the fourth he struggled to keep Pauls at bay. Pauls, 31, finished the fight in a similar style to which he ended their first – by pushing Heaney back and forcing the champion to the ground, where he stayed for the full 10 count.
The 35-year-old champion started to establish his jab early in the second and kept the smaller Pauls away with his long left arm. Pauls struggled to close the gap but landed the occasional hook over the guard of Heaney in the third.
Pauls continued his pressure in the fourth round and finally found the target with a right hand counter over the top of Heaney’s jab. The champion was knocked down by the sheer force of the shot but returned to his feet. Pauls came out to make a statement in the fifth and started to land the wild hooks that were missing earlier in the contest. Heaney tried to punish the growing-in-confidence challenger early in the sixth, but Pauls fought back and finished the round on top.
Heaney started to re-establish his jab at the start of the seventh, but it wasn’t as sharp as it was earlier on, and Pauls countered well over the top. Pauls stepped on Heaney in the eighth and hurt him with a right hand again, rocking the champion. The challenger seemed to slow down in the tenth, and Heaney took encouragement from a left to the body. Heaney also used his long leavers to keep the tiring Pauls at bay.
The challenger responded to the previous two rounds in the 11th when he pushed the champion back and landed hard punches that meant Heaney heard the bell on shaky legs.
Pauls then came out for the 12th and final round as he did in the first contest – with the intent of stopping the champion. This time Pauls’ pressure was too much for Heaney, who was knocked down by a barrage of punches and chose to let the referee Michael Alexander’s count reach 10 instead of fighting on.
The time of the stoppage was 0.54. Pauls celebrated by lifting the famous Lonsdale belt that he felt he should have won during the first fight.
Andrew Cain had by then dethroned the British bantamweight champion Ashley Lane when a brutal body shot secured victory in the fifth round.
Cain came out firing in the first, but Lane responded by throwing heavy shots to try and extinguish the fiery challenger. The champion then tried to assert his authority in the second by throwing hooks, but he was taking a huge risk against the sharper Cain. The pace of the fight was clearly affecting Lane, and as the champion’s punches started to slow, Cain started to take over in the third.
The challenger began to land at will on the wilting Lane and he hurt the defending champion with a right hand in the fourth. The end of the fight came in the fifth after Cain delivered hard shots to the head of Lane, followed by a sickening left to the body. Lane sank to the canvas, and the referee Kevin Parker waved the action over after 1.47.