Local hero Lindsay finds the going too tough

In other championship action in the Odyssey, local favourite Martin Lindsay, game but outclassed, was well beaten on points by the extremely talented if also arrogant Welshman Lee Selby for the British & Commonwealth Featherweight title.

Rare to see a referee in the pro game stop a fight to lecture a fighter on his showboating, but that was the fate suffered by Selby — rightly so.

In an official eliminator for the British & Commonwealth super-flyweight championship, yet another local hero, Jamie ‘Mexican’ Conlan (brother of Olympic bronze medallist Michael) left it late against Liverpool’s Mike Robinson but a tenth-round TKO was enough to see him take the honours.

The remainder of the card was a mix of experienced fighters getting a workout, keeping themselves busy, and a series of four-rounders for a number of youngsters dipping their feet in the pro ranks.

Among the former none is more popular than Belfast heavyweight Martin Rogan and he tried to give his many supporters something to cheer about very early on as he tried to make short work of the already short albeit stocky Czech Ladislav Kovarik (weighed in at 18st3lbs, not all of that solid muscle). Despite Martin’s best efforts however the surprisingly durable Ladislav took him the full four rounds.

“I haven’t had a fight in nearly a year so I needed the rounds,” was the affable Rogie’s attempt to put a positive slant on it. Now 41, Martin has his work cut out if he’s to become the only man ever to win a second Prizefighter title, in a few weeks.

Earlier, English-based Pole Grzegorz Proksa began the long road back from his recent world middleweight title fight loss to Gennady Golovkin in New York last September with an emphatic six-round win over Hungary’s Norbert Szekeres.

Three local youngsters made their appearance and all proved winners, Daniel McShane (super-featherweight), James Fryers (light-welterweight) and Marco McCullough (lightweight) proving far too good for Pavel Senkovs (Mansfield), Billy Smith (Wales, a late but hard-working sub) and Ibrar Riyaz respectively.

By far the most impressive youngster of all on the night, however, wasn’t a local lad at all but Liverpool’s Callum Smith, a super-middleweight in every sense. Poor Tommy Tolan though is surely sick of the sight of that Smith family. It was only last November that Paul Smith forced the tough Tommy to retire after only four rounds; here, younger brother Callum — an outstanding amateur — did it inside a round, a TKO after Callum dropped Tommy early.

Watch for the name — Callum Smith.