British Scene Weekend Recap: Webb Stops Concepcion - Arthur Outworks Hughes

Dave Oakes recaps this past weekend's British boxing action.

Sam Webb made an impressive first defence of his British light-middleweight title on Saturday night, outboxing Martin Concepcion before unleashing a brutal right hand that brought proceedings to an abrupt end in the eleventh round.

Concepcion started quickly, clearly trying to make Webb engage in a toe to toe battle. Webb showed great composure though, coolly boxing off the back foot, catching Concepcion with fast and accurate combinations.

The fight took on a similar pattern of Concepcion walking Webb down but landing very little whilst being caught by the constantly moving Webb. Eventually Concepcion began to feel the pace; the result being that Webb found more opportunities to land and could now sit down on his punches more than he’d done so far in the fight.

The end came in the eleventh, Concepcion was still trying to close Webb down when he walked on to a big right hand to the side of his head that robbed him of his senses and sent him crashing down to the canvas. The Leicester man, as brave as he is, was never going to beat the count and the referee correctly waved the fight over as soon as he went down.

Webb produced a near punch perfect performance and didn’t lose a round on my card. He’s improved greatly over the past two years and is developing into a solid all-round boxer-puncher, although I feel he’s not ready to face Ryan Rhodes yet - Rhodes is widely considered the best light-middle in Britain. A fight with Prince Arron looks the most likely for Webb’s next defence.

Jamie Arthur brought an end to Kris Hughes’ unbeaten record after a messy, poor fight for the Commonwealth super-bantamweight title. Neither fighter could establish any sort of control over the other or find their rhythm, timing or accuracy.

It was Arthur who prevailed though, mainly due to his higher work rate, and also partly down to Hughes’ negative approach in the later rounds. Arthur was deducted two points for repeatedly hitting below the belt during the contest but it didn’t affect the outcome of the fight as he took the judges decision (114-112 twice and 114-113).

It wasn’t the best fight I’ve seen this year to say the least, but Arthur won’t be too bothered about that after claiming the first title of his career. The super-bantamweight division is fairly competitive in Britain and Arthur can look towards the likes of Scott Quigg, Jason Booth, Carl Frampton, Michael Walsh and Paul Hyland as potential opponents for the future.

Unbeaten heavyweight prospects Tom Dallas and David Price kept their records intact on the undercard, with stoppage victories over Paul Morris and Raman Sukhaterin respectively.

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