By Elliot Foster
Lee Markham ground out a victory in what was a cracking fight.
The former WBO European super-middleweight title challenger outpointed Joe Mullender at London’s O2 Arena, as part of the undercard to David Haye’s clash against Arnold Gjergjaj.
Markham came out on top in what was a battle of solid hooks and uppercuts from both men and, after bloodying his opponent’s face at the end of the first quarter of the fight, went on to take the fight away from Mullender down the stretch to pick up the vacant English middleweight belt.
Both fighters took a lot of punishment throughout the duration of the 10-round showdown, but it was Markham who got the nod after a gruelling fight, taking it by margins of 97-93, 98-93 and 97-94.
Earlier in the card, millionaire nightclub owner Joe Fournier moved to 4-0 (4 KOs) with a dazzling display against Hungarian opposition.
Fournier had his opponent down twice in the second round, after unleashing a barrage of shots in the opener, before the referee, Jeff Hinds, called a halt to the clash with Bela Juhasz after one minute and 42 seconds of the round.
Meanwhile, Nick Webb, now 6-0 (5 KOs), remained unbeaten with a points victory over Hari Miles, who slipped to 9-10 (2 KOs).
And Ollie Pattison (4-0) and Daniel Keenan (2-0) have both scored four-round points wins over Bryan Wain (0-9) and Dwayne Sheldon (0-3) respectively.
But it wasn’t so straightforward for Floyd Moore (14-6-1), who squeezed past Yordan Vasilev (18-43-2, 4 KOs) on points.
The Portsmouth fighter was decked in the third round against his Bulgarian opponent but regrouped enough to take the clash on the card of the referee by 58 points to 56.
