Josh Warrington wins European title with TKO over Davide Dieli
British featherweight contender Josh Warrington (19-0, 3 KOs) scored a fourth round TKO over Italian Davide Dieli (15-4, 5 KOs) on Saturday night at the First Direct Arena in Leeds.
The 23-year-old added a third major title in 10 months as his crushing stoppage of his Italian opponent saw him pick up the vacant European strap to add to his Commonwealth and British titles.
From the first round Warrington was faster, quicker to the jab, more hurtful with his body shots and generally outworked his opponent into the ground.
The 35-year-old Dieli struggled to find any joy and was never given a moment’s rest due to Warrington’s incredible engine and incessant work rate, and in the fourth round it became just too much.
The hometown favourite sent Dieli to the canvas with a quick combination, and after the Italian struggled to get back up after an eight count, Warrington simply leapt on his man and after unleashing an overwhelming barrage of punches the referee had to step in and end the fight.
On the undercard, Scotland's Ricky Burns (37-4-1, 11 KOs) defeated Alexandre Lepelley (17-2-1, 3 KOs) by a eight round unanimous decision in a light welterweight contest.
Burns dropped Lepelley in round one but had to work hard to outpoint the much shorter Frenchman the rest of the way, winning by a score of 79-71.
The former two division world champion Burns was coming off consecutive losses to Terence Crawford and Dejan Zlaticanin and a gift draw against Ray Beltran.
Other results on the card: