Mark Heffron became a British champion at the third attempt as he stopped Lennox Clarke for the super-middleweight title at the Copper Box in London.
Heffron was stopped by Liam Williams in 2018 and then pulled out due to a nasty looking eye injury against Denzel Bentley in 2020, both at middleweight, Heffron made no mistake one weight up as he took the fight to Clarke and won a thriller. He won the Commonwealth title and a minor IBF belt for good measure.
Clarke had been making the first defence of the title he won with a sensational stoppage of Willy Hutchinson at the same venue 16 months ago.
He endured a torrid first round, as Heffron landed repeatedly with hard, short hooks. Clarke was rocked consistently, as Heffron could not miss, but somehow he stayed uptight.
The minute’s rest seemed to do wonders for Clarke, though, as he came out to take the fight to Heffron in the second.
Heffron dominated in the third, beating Clarke to the punch and then rocking him with a big right uppercut and a chopping right hook, which almost turned him around.
Early in the fourth round, Clarke landed a huge left hook, but Heffron got back on top and a series of body punches, culminating in a big left hook, had Clarke backing off. Heffron then landed a one-two straight down the pipe.
Heffron kept in the pressure at the start of the fifth round and when one left hook staggered Clarke back to the ropes, Heffron pounced, landing two more hard head punches before referee Bob Williams jumped in to stop it at 2:28.