By Mark Vester

The old warrior, Howard Eastman is still making noise in the middleweight divsion. Friday night he knocked out Richard Williams in the 12th round to regain the British middleweight title at York Hall, Bethnal Green.

Good friends? Better ring enemies?

It was noted prior to the bout that Eastman and Williams have been friends for over twenty years, and Williams turned Eastman onto boxing by bringing him to his very first boxing gym. Eastman held nothing back as he battered his buddy with hard power punches for a majority of the fight, busting up his pal's face in the process.

At time of the stoppage, Eastman was well on his way to win, the scores were 109-101, 108-102 and 107-103.

Eastman told Sportinglife that he is happy his friend was not seriously hurt, but this was business in the ring.

"I'm glad that Richard is okay. It's extremely difficult to fight a friend, but we are all old school here. We got the win we came for. I was never negative; he made me fight like that. I was just pacing myself, and the difference between us was just my experience," Eastman said.

At 36-years-old, Eastman is hoping for one last title shot in 2007.