David Avanesyan came to the ring at Wembley behind a European Union flag and was billed from Yerevan, Armenia, before he demolished Oskari Metz, of Finland, in two minutes in defense of his European welterweight title. 

There was a serious gulf in class. While Metz was unbeaten in 15 fights, he had never been in with anyone of Avanesyan’s class as was simply battered. 

Metz came out willing to mix it with Avanesyan and was nailed by a pretty good left hook early on.  

Those tactics seemed suicidal, though, as Avanesyan’s shorter hooks beat him to the punch and after a left rocked Metz, a left, right, left then sent him tumbling over. 

After then the end was not long in coming, as he barely looked able to continue. After another left banged home, Metz tried to hold, but more lefts got through as the Finnish boxer turned away, referee Giuseppe Quartarone giving Metz a standing count before waving it off. 

Avanesyan, who was formerly billed from Russia, where he was born after his parents fled Armenia during the Armenia-Azerbaijan War. He has been based in Newark, Nottinghamshire, training for years with Carl Greaves and boxes under a Serbian licence, so was not affected by the ban on Russian and Belarussian boxers competing in the UK. 

He was making the fifth successful defence of the title.  

He is currently rated No 2 by the WBC, No 5 by the WBO and No 8 by the IBF. He was also ranked No 12 by the WBA, although that position is now blank in their latest rankings after the names of some Russian boxers were redacted. Avanesyan’s position has been replaced by “not rated, #nowar”. 

Avanesyan said: "I am feeling happy, I have not seen my family for six weeks I worked hard and keep my belt. Hopefully after a month my manager and promoter phone me and say I have a world title fight. I am ready."

Ron Lewis is a senior writer for BoxingScene. He was Boxing Correspondent for The Times, where he worked from 2001-2019 - covering four Olympic Games and numerous world title fights across the globe. He has written about boxing for a wide variety of publications worldwide since the 1980s.