Harvey Horn’s big night headlining Wasserman Boxing’s first Development Series show at York Hall ended up as a calamity as he Horn was stopped in the fourth round by late substitute Fadhili Majiha, of Tanzania, to wreck his unbeaten record. 

Flyweight Horn, who won a European silver-medal as an amateur and went to a World Championships, had hoped this fight would be the start of a big 12 months. He returned to the ring after a two-year break last month with a routine win, but the experienced Majiha looked a more dangerous proposition. 

Majiha had lost on three previous trips to the UK, against Qais Ashfaq, Paul Butler and Andrew Selby, but the fact that he had dropped Selby twice before losing on points gave more than a hint that he was dangerous. 

And so it proved. While Horn was on top early on, there were warnings as early as the first round, when Majiha got through with a clubbing right. Horn looked in total control in the second and third rounds as he moved and beat Majiha to the punch.  

But midway through the fourth round, Majiha landed with a hard right that rocked Horn. The Londoner fought back off the ropes, but Majiha’s confidence was up and he started throwing bombs. Horn decided to try to fight his way out of trouble but was caught by the more rights to the side of the head and then dropped by a left hook to the body. 

He beat the count, but Majiha piled into him, landing two more body shots before a right hook to the side of the head knocked Horn down for the second time. He was back on his feet at nine, but referee Lee Every waved it off. The official time was 2:32 of the fourth round.  

Super-welterweight Ryan Martin will be looking to move back into title class soon, but he had a routine win over six rounds against Angel Emilov, dropping the Bulgarian with a left hook in the final round on the way to a 60-53 decision from judge Lee Every. 

Huge heavyweight hope Matty Harris was taken the full four rounds on his pro debut by Estonia’s Mladen Manev, before taking a 40-36 decision.  

Louis Horn, Harvey’s brother, made a successful professional debut winning a 40-36 decision against Jakub Laskowski, of Poland, at lightweight. 

Super-middleweight Martin Foru moved to 6-0, winning a 40-36 decision against Slovakia’s Pavol Garaj. 

There were also debut wins for Hosea Stewart Jr, Saqib Khan and Chloe Watson, who all took 40-36 points wins.

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.