Gavin Gwynne stopped Sean McComb in seven rounds to claim the vacant Commonwealth lightweight title at the Bolton Whites Hotel, Bolton, England.

Gwynne started fast on the MTK Global/Lee Eaton event and tried to rough McComb up from the opening bell. While the classier work came from the Irishman, Gwynne wouldn’t be denied and cut McComb in each of the first two rounds.

The battle-hardened Welshman pressured McComb constantly and hurt him with a bodyshot in the second. The action-packed fight was a war of attrition.

Gwynne bounced back from a loss to James Tennyson in his last outing.

McComb started to struggle with the pace and was hurt late in the sixth round. Finally, after a last hurrah midway through the seventh round, McComb wilted under the pressure and turned his back, leaving referee Steve Gray to stop the fight at 2:09 of the round.

“I put so much into this camp, you could see I was super fit,” a proud Gwynne told Alex Steedman in the post-fight interview. “No one was going to beat me; you could have put any world class fighter in there tonight and I wasn’t going to stop.

“That was only first gear, [trainer] Tony [Borg] said, ‘Don’t go up a gear. Wait till he starts tiring.’ I didn’t have to in the end.

“I knew I couldn’t stay on the back foot with him, he was a class amateur, I couldn’t outbox him, I had to take it to him and take him out of his stride. Get him cut up, I knew that was going to play on him and then I started going to work and putting my shots together.

“I’m speechless, I can’t put into words what this means to me.”

Gwynne ups his record to 13-2, 3 knockouts, while McComb drops to 11-1, 5 KOs.

Undercard

Samuel Antwi (13-1, 6 KOs) scored the best win of his career when he stopped Darren Tetley (20-2, 9 KOs) in six rounds to claim the vacant English welterweight title.

Antwi dropped Tetley in the opening round. Tetley rose but struggled to cope with Antwi’s body attack throughout. Antwi landed a sickening bodyshot with 45 seconds left in the sixth round that visibly hurt Tetley. He tried to cover up but ended up taking a barrage of headshots that dropped him. Again, he made his way to his feet. Antwi landed a big right hand which rocked Tetley and referee Michael Alexander stopped the action late in the sixth.

Danny Carr (11-0-1, 4 KOs) used his boxing brain to retain his Southern Area junior lightweight title with a 10-round decision over Dean Dodge (9-1-1, 3 KOs) on Howard Foster’s scorecard, 97-93.

Junior welterweight Pierce O’Leary (6-0, 2 KOs) impressively outpointed Irvin Magno (5-4-1, 1 KO) on referee Steve Gray’s lone scorecard, 59-55.

Highly regarded Irish welterweight Paddy Donovan (6-0, 4 KOs) continued his development when he forced usually durable Siar Ozgul (15-6, 3 KOs) to retire at the end of the fourth round.

Welterweight Elliott Whale (4-0, 1 KOs) outpointed Jamie Stewart (2-1-1, 0 KOs) over six rounds on referee Howard Foster’s scorecard, 59-55.

Mark McKeown (4-0, 2 KOs) stopped previously unbeaten Brad Daws (6-1, 2 KOs) at 0:40 of the second round in a junior lightweight contest.

Middleweight Mohammed Sameer (2-0, 1 KO) won all four rounds on referee Steve Gray’s scorecard to outpoint Kearon Thomas (1-10-1, 1 KO)

Questions and/or comments can be sent to Anson at [email protected] and you can follow him on  Twitter @AnsonWainwright