 Hunter beat Esham Pickering for the European title last October |
Britain's Michael Hunter retained his EBU European super bantamweight title with a controversial second-round stoppage of Yersin Jailauov on Friday. The Hartlepool fight was halted one minute 40 seconds into round two after Jailauov was rocked by a right hook.
The Kazakhstan fighter wobbled but referee Erkki Meronen looked to be premature in ending the contest.
Hunter led after round one thanks to some solid shots but admitted: "I was surprised the referee stopped it."
The 27-year-old added: "I'd trained very hard for this fight and had been working on the power of my punches.
"I knew I had hurt him and if the ref hadn't stepped in then, he was going to sooner or later."
Hunter is now unbeaten after 25 fights (one draw) and is already plotting a world title assault.
"There is always time to improve and we just hope we can go on to bigger and better things after this with a world title shot down the line," he added.
MMIX
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