By Elliot Foster
CONOR BENN extended his unblemished ledger with another stoppage.
The son of Nigel, who has been out of the ring since his life-and-death outing against Frenchman Cedric Peynaud back in December, is now 12-0 after sending Birmingham’s Chris Truman to the canvas with a left uppercut.
Truman failed to recover, leaving referee Mark Lyson with no option but to call a halt to proceedings after one minute and 17 seconds of round four.
Benn, 21, is still learning on the job –– with his father reiterating afterwards that he only had 20 amateur fights.
But ‘The Destroyer’ knows about the limitations he has shown to date and has vowed to work on them after getting another victory on the undercard of Amir Khan’s long-awaited return at the ECHO Arena against Phil Lo Greco, exclusively live on Sky Sports.
“I still rushed things,” he said in the aftermath, “but I worked on a few things that I’d been doing in the gym for the past five months.
“I learned a lot in this fight and I’ll head back to the gym and work on my mistakes from tonight.”
Eddie Hearn, Benn’s promoter, said that there is the potential to “squeeze him out towards the end of May” before they build towards the rematch with Peynaud around July time.
Also on the card, Natasha Jonas stopped Taoussy L’Hadji inside the distance to claim her first professional title.
The 33-year-old former Olympian, who fought Katie Taylor in the Olympics in London back in 2012, has long chased her rival since turning over to the paid code.
Jonas is now one step closer to taking on the Bray woman after getting her French opponent out early. Referee Michael Alexander had very little to do, but a right hook from Jonas forced L’Hadji somewhat out on her feet and meant that the ref had to step in.
The WBA International female super-featherweight title was on the line on Saturday and the plan now is to fight for a world title before a potential showdown with Taylor down the line.
