By Elliot Foster

Liam Williams moved up in weight and produced a sensational showing.

The Welshman, a former British champion at super-welterweight, stepped up to middleweight to take on Mark Heffron.

Williams agreed to fight the previously undefeated Northerner up at 160lbs after he failed to secure an opponent for the vacant British title.

And Heffron struggled massively and was barely in the fight as ‘The Machine’ -- now under the tutelage of Dominic Ingle after leaving Gary Lockett -- stopped him to claim the belt at the Manchester Arena on Saturday.

The fight, which had bad blood attached to it in the build-up, came as part of the supporting cast to Josh Warrington’s bid to retain his IBF featherweight world title against former two-weight king Carl Frampton.

Williams, who has now registered three early finishes since a pair of defeats at the hands of Liverpool’s Liam Smith last year, won pretty much every second of every round, with ‘Kid Dynamite’ failing to stamp his authority on the fight at any point.

And after a sustained barrage of shots and pressure, the referee Howard Foster had seen enough and called a halt to proceedings after one minute and 55 seconds of the 10th round.

It remains to be seen whether Williams (19-2-1, 14 KOs) will remain at middleweight or whether he will move down to super-welterweight, where he also won Commonwealth and WBO European honours.

Heffron, under Robert Rimmer, will have to go back to the drawing board after losing his undefeated record and slipping to 21-1.