Willie Limond fails to regain light-welterweight title

Glasgow's Willie Limond failed in his bid to regain the British light-welterweight title when he was stopped one minute and 54 seconds into the ninth round of his challenge to Tyrone Nurse. The 37-year-old will now almost certainly retire.

Willie Limond throws a right at Tyrone Nurse, but it was to no avail, the fight was stopped in the ninth. Picture: Steve Welsh

While the crowd was distracted by the appearance of veteran heavyweight Shannon Briggs at ringside, Limond started brightly, putting Nurse on the back foot and edging the first round.

He maintained his momentum in the second, keeping the champion off balance by stepping inside his jab and landing his own shots.

More of the same followed, with Nurse becoming frustrated by his inability to lay a glove on the Scot.

Limond was happy to go toe-to-toe with the taller man and continued to land the cleaner punches.

He had Nurse wobbling in the fourth when the Yorkshireman walked into a strong right hand but the fight was turned on its head in the fifth.

Nurse literally took the wind out of the challenger’s sails with a fearsome body shot and made bad worse with a blow to the nose which produced more blood than your average Quentin Tarantino film.

Limond battled on bravely, but a corner had been turned and, by the ninth, his face was a scarlet mess and referee Victor Loughlin stepped in to save him from further punishment.

Earlier, Joe Ham, who turned professional after representing Scotland in the Commonwealth Games in 2014, extended his unbeaten record with a convincing 58-55 points win over Birmingham super-bantamweight Paul Holt.

The 24-year-old from the Gorbals survived an eight-count in the sixth round to close out the fight. “I came off balance, my feet got caught, but he threw a shot and that daft wee shot landed,” he said. “I had an eye infection all week, which put me off my sparring. My left eye was so swollen last Tuesday I could hardly see out of it. I’ve been up at Gartnavel and on anti-biotics.

“I’ve had two weeks of disaster, basically, but I have sold 300-odd tickets so I couldn’t let people down. I kept it to myself, apart from my manager and my mates at the gym.”

Scott Cardle, the British lightweight champion and brother of Dunfermline winger Joe, was in cruise control as he outpointed Croatian Ivan Nijeka 60-54.

Greenock welterweight Sam Ball recovered from a first-round knockdown to put Maidstone’s George Hennon down twice before the referee stopped the contest in the third.

Light-welterweight Conor Benn, watched by father Nigel, was taken all the way by fellow Englishman Luke Kelleher but won on points and will be better for having the four rounds under his belt.