Smith strikes to claim the Black Country spoils

Every ticket for the show was sold around five weeks before the opening bell of BKM TM’s latest promotion, writes Matt Bozeat

And fans in around 40 countries around the world watched all the action.

They saw 10 fights, including what was dubbed ‘The Battle of the Black Country’.

That was between Nathan Massey, who lives a short drive from the Wolverhampton venue, and Luke ‘Scrap King’ Smith, from Walsall.

It was one of the fights of the night and brought the crowd to their feet at the final bell.

Smith won a split decision after a fierce battle he said left him looking “a bit like The Elephant Man.”

He added: “I’ve got a lot of people here and put a lot of pressure on myself. I made it harder than I needed to. I wanted to get him out of there.”

Both were shaken in a frantic opening minute. After the referee told Smith off for some rough-house tactics, he settled to box behind a hard jab.

He continued to outbox Massey in the second – until the dying seconds when Massey landed a right to the jaw that made Smith reset and he was tiring and taking punches.

Both gave and took clean shots throughout a gruelling final round.

One of the other highlights was a fight that featured Tom Stokes.

The 29-year-old from West Bromwich faced Marley Churcher in a five-round fight between former solid gloved boxers.

At the final bell, Stokes thought he had done enough to get the verdict after a strong finish, but the decision went the other way.

Stokes had tasted success on his bareknuckle boxing debut in only 32 seconds last June and Churcher clearly didn’t want to trade punches with him.

The Oxford veteran circled the ring, pecking away with jabs that opened curt under and over Stokes’s left eye.

Stokes had to wait until the fourth round to get Churcher where he wanted him and unloaded on him.

Churcher didn’t take too many solid punches and then found a short shot that put Stokes on his knees.

That surely left Stokes behind on the scorecards going into the last round and although he had Churcher wobbling following a left hook in the dying seconds of the contest, he ran out of time to get the knockout he needed.