London - Dagenham’s Billy Adams got tonight’s Queensberry Promotions’ show underway and remained unbeaten by comfortably outpointing Brighton’s Mark Butler in their super featherweight fight. 

Adams, 3-0, went looking for his first professional stoppage from the opening bell. ‘Boom Boom’ didn’t detonate anything significant, but his relentless attacks prevented Butler, 2-11 (1 KO), from launching any kind of offense. The 21 year old southpaw’s enthusiasm couldn’t be faulted but his determination to hurt Butler meant that he neglected a quality jab and got his feet too close to the target. Butler quickly recognised a safe route to the final bell and either stayed way out of range or clinched, held and bought himself time.

Adams slowed things down as the rounds passed and began to use his feet better in the fourth and final round. Butler was briefly stung by a left uppercut in the third round but otherwise, he negotiated the four rounds without too much trouble. 

Referee Keiran McCann scored the fight 40-36 for Adams. 

Luton’s all-action middleweight Sam King got much more than he bargained for from Estonia’s Artjom Spatar. 

King, 2-0-1 (1 KO) - who trains at the famous Peacock Gym alongside former world title challenger Denzel Bentley - has made an exciting start to life as a professional but the 23 year old encountered much more resistance from Spatar, 4-7-1 (1 KO), who has been matched with a number of British middleweight prospects in recent months. 

Spater let his right hand go time and time again and his willingness to do so seemed to throw King, who found himself standing at arm's length, visibly working out the best way to go about the job rather than throwing shots. After two rounds, Spatar looked comfortable and clearly began to sense his first victory on British soil. King - nursing a damaged hand - took advantage of his ambition to land one clean right hand but it was a nip and tuck affair.  Both fighters upped the work rate in the final round, taking turns to let short combinations go but Spatar seemed to be landing the cleaner punches.

After four rounds, referee Lee Every scored the fight 38-38. King left the ring with his unbeaten record intact, an injured right hand and a slightly fortunate draw. 

Until he ran into dangerous Romanian Ionut Baluta last March, heavy handed Andrew Cain, 11-1 (10 KO’s), appeared to be one of British boxing’s fastest rising stars. Things went wrong during the very opening skirmishes of his fight with Baluta when Cain picked up a badly broken hand and although he rallied to more than play his part in one of the very best fights of 2023, he lost a tight split decision and spent the rest of the year recovering from his injuries. 

After a 13 month absence from the ring, the Liverpudlian bantamweight returned over eight rounds against Nicaragua’s game Darwing Martinez, 8-20-2 (6 KO’s), who is much better than his patchy record suggests. 

Showing no ill effects of the lay-off, the intimidating Cain was straight back to business. Cain is a switch-hitter who attacks in slightly unorthodox, explosive bursts. He dropped his hands, moved in and out with quick steps and looked to capitalize on every shot Martinez threw. 

Martinez is a capable fighter and scored with a right hand early in the second round but began to throw less and less as the speed of Cain’s counterpunching troubled him - one flashing left hook as the second round ended being the perfect example. Cain was into his groove, his right hand began to land frequently and he found his timing and range more and more regularly with quick fire counters.

Midway through the fourth, Cain feinted a jab and timed a picture perfect overhand right. Martinez went down heavily and although he clambered back to his feet, referee Keiran McCann correctly stopped the fight. The time was 1.27 of the fourth round.