Foster succumbs to Baluta on points at York Hall

Walsall’s Brad Foster suffered the second defeat of his professional career on Friday night as all three judges ringside found Ionut Baluta a unanimous victor after ten rounds of action by scores of 98-94 and 97-93 twice respectively.. The Romanian’s sheer volume looked to take the majority of the rounds, with Foster not throwing enough to pickup the points despite showing flashes of superb technical ability. Baluta threw solid combinations all night, often missing with the first couple but finding success with the third and fourth shots, and while Foster did land sporadically, the majority were single shots and the twenty-four-year-old could not gather any momentum to win many rounds convincingly. An apparent injury to the Walsall man’s right-hand certainly didn’t help his cause, with Foster not throwing it at all during the tenth and final session on the night. Foster’s new record now stands at 14-2-2, while Baluta now boasts one of 15-3-0 respectively.

Cain moves to 10-0-0 with yet another devastating first-round knockout.

Friday’s undercard saw yet another first-round demolition by Liverpool’s Andrew Cain at super-bantamweight, with the Liverpudlian crashing a right uppercut to the chin of Luis Moreno. The Mexican soon climbed to his feet but again found himself being pummelled on the ropes and after several straight right-hands, Moreno took a knee and was down for a second time. This time around, the Mexican was less eager to regain his footing and failed to make the ten count by referee Victor Loughlin who waved the contest off. Cain has now scored back-to-back first-round knockouts and spoke in the aftermath about a potential move down to bantamweight as he eyes a potential title shot next time out. Cain’s record now stands at 10-0-0 respectively.

Chapman impressed on her Queensberry debut with a first-round knockout of Gabriella Mezei.

Further down the card, the long-anticipated Queensberry debut for Raven Chapman ended inside a round as ‘The Omen’ crashed a huge right-hand over the top which sent Gabriella Mezei to the canvas after a barrage of body shots. Chapman now moves to 3-0-0 as a professional, two of the three wins coming inside the distance. Super-featherweight Charles Frankham moved to 6-0-0 with a comfortable six-round points victory over Sandeep Singh Bhatti, while Micky Burke Jr stopped Ivica Gogosevic inside four with a left hook to the body after Burke Jr had the Croatian also down in the first. Welterweight Joshua Frankham whitewashed Naeem Ali over four rounds, as did Adan Mohamed in a four-round super-bantamweight contest versus Stefan Nicolae. Sean Noakes sealed his professional debut at 147lbs with a 40-36 points victory over Lee Hallett to kick off his professional career.