Hamilton shocks Theophane...

Darren Hamilton with trainer Spencer Fearon.

Last night at the Aintree Racecourse in Liverpool, world rated fighter Ashley Theophane lost his his British light-welterweight title in a shock defeat against 33-year old Darren Hamilton.

Everybody expected this to be an easy fight for Theophane, who had been training with Floyd Mayweather in America, but Hamilton had a different idea. A half-hearted Theophane just couldn't stay away from Hamilton's intense pressure and looked as though he had given up halfway through the fight. He did attempt to put the pressure on every so often but Hamilton came back even stronger. SkySports' stats at the end of the fight showed that both men had landed exactly 142 punches each. The scorecards at the end of the fight were a little wider than expected but the rightful winner was picked. Hamilton 12-2, 3 KO's) was the winner on all three scorecards, 117-112, 118-113 and 115-113.

Ashley Theopane.

Theophane (31-5-1, 9 KO's) has been in the ring with and beaten the likes of Delvin Rodriguez and Demarcus Corley. He also lost a split decision to light-welterweight world champion Danny Garcia. The  31-year old was only returning to domestic level to defend his British belt one more time so that he had the title for keeps. The fact that Hamilton took the fight at very short notice made his victory even more impressive.

In the post-fight interview, Theophane moaned about the decision and tried to take a little credit away from the ecstatic Hamilton.

"I thought I won by three or four rounds... But bad decisions are part of boxing," said the New York-based Londoner.

He also explained that he wasn't properly prepared for the fight as he had no motivation: "I struggled to mentally get up for fights on the domestic level and the writing has been on the wall for some time... I have been going through the motions. My domestic opponents will be super motivated as I'm their biggest fight but their name on my record has no meaning."


Hamilton and his team were over the moon with the victory and revealed even they expected a much different outcome. They said that this is a message to all fighters out there that you have to be ready for a fight at all times and if you "stay in the gym, then you'r ready for any fight."