By Richie Woodhall BBC boxing pundit

Walker: No disgrace in defeat

Now and again you come up against a guy who is just too good for you.

I certainly did against Joe Calzaghe - he had an answer for everything I did.

And Dave Walker had the same problem against Roman Karmazin in his European light-middleweight title bid at Alexandra Palace.

At the end of the day, you just have to hold up your hand and say: "Well I was beaten by the better man."

There is no disgrace in that defeat at all.

Walker ruthlessly exposed

Unless you box against the best you never know how you are going to fare.

So I take my hat off to Karmazin, who is an excellent champion.

He will definitely become a world champion one day and probably of a main sanctioning body like the WBC.

You can't fault trainer Robert McCracken for stopping the fight

I think what surprised Walker more than anything was the Russian's size - he is a big light-middleweight.

When you fight good fighters, they are very accurate - and Karmazin came up with some excellent body shots.

He set traps. Moving from head to body and firing in some thunderous shots.

And he is very, very relaxed, very sharp and he has got the power as well.

You cannot fault trainer Robert McCracken for stopping the fight - he had seen Walker get hurt a couple of times and he made the right decision.