Lightweight contender Chann Thonson improved to 11-0 (7) with an exciting win over Tyler Tomlin, who was beaten for the first time in 14 starts.

Canada’s Thonson landed a solid right at the end of round one and shortly thereafter, Tomlin showed signs of swelling under the left eye. Tomlin, from Ashland City in Tennessee, was tagged with worrying frequency in the third and he gritted his teeth to make it through the session as Thonson let fly with a number of left hooks and right hands.

Tomlin’s face was becoming bloody and lumpy. He took more abuse in the fourth but was incredibly game, planted his feet and fired back.

Blood pumped from his nose and there were some thrilling exchanges as the round continued. Thonson was winning, but Tomlin wasn’t quitting. Instead, Tomlin took a massive right hand at the start of the fifth and somehow stayed on his feet. Moments later, referee Mark Nelson stopped the action so the doctor could check on the Tennessee man – who was cut by the left cheek and, reluctantly, Tomlin was withdrawn from battle.

Time of the stoppage was 1-01 of round five and it had been set for eight.

Charles Foster improved to 21-0 with a fourth-round win over courageous Bo Gibbs Jr.

Oklahoma’s Gibbs, 23-3, was down in the opening moments and gestured that he’d been hit behind the head but it was the left hand that put him over.

Foster, from New Heaven, Connecticut, picked his shots and countered well in the second, ran the show in the third and put his foot on the gas in the fourth. Foster finally made the decisive breakthrough with that left hand; uppercuts, hooks and straight shots and when a woozy Gibbs lost his mouthpiece, referee Charlie Fitch took the opportunity to stop the fight. Time was 2-48 of the fourth. 

Super-welterweight southpaw Oshae ‘Suga’ Jones, an Olympic bronze medallist from Toledo, Ohio, had too much quality for Alabama’s Sonya Dreiling, winning 60-54 across the board. 

Dreiling was struggling after two and bleeding heavily from the nose through much of the fight. Jones is a classy operator and Dreiling, who hung tough to the final bell after six rounds, falls to 4-3.

Orlando’s Amron Sands won a scrappy but at times entertaining eight-rounder over Jersey City’s Joe Jones, 77-75 across the board in a heavyweight clash. Jones falls to 13-5 (10) and southpaw Sands is now 12-2 (9).

Debutant Nicolas Tejada scored the first win of his career with a second-round stoppage of Syracuse welterweight Mike Taylor, who is no 0-4. Referee Charlie Fitch stopped the show opener at the Turning Stone Casino in Verona with the New York man under fire at the 2-11 mark.