Leamington's Matty Harris returns to winning ways at Telford fight night

The 6'9" puncher from Leamington Spa suffered defeat to Ukrainian Kostiantyn Dovbyshchenko last summer, to abruptly bring an end to his perfect start to life as a professional fighter.

Harris, 24, took an extended break from the ring to work on his game and, late last year, made the decision to switch trainers and begin working with heavyweight-specialist Peter Fury, uncle and former coach of world champion Tyson.

And the pair teamed up for the first time last Friday night at the Telford International Centre, as Harris returned to action for the first time since the Dovbyshchenko loss.

'Magic' won every round in a clear 40-36 points win over Belgium's Amine Boucetta, on the undercard of the huge Wasserman Boxing show, and will now be offered the chance to take on Dovbyshchenko in a rematch.

Harris' promoter, Nisse Sauerland, said: "Matty exorcised some demons in there on Friday night and he produced a disciplined performance.

"He needs to be disciplined because he will not blow everyone away in the first round, as he had been doing before the defeat last summer.

"A rematch against Dovbyshchenko is the natural next step for Matty and we'd like to make that fight, but we will sit down and talk to Matty, Peter Fury and the rest of his team about his next move."

Harris, who now holds a 6-1 record, said: "Peter was happy with my performance, but I know there is plenty of stuff still to work on because I am my own worst critic when it comes to evaluating my displays.

"Everyone wants to go in there and get the stoppage, but one thing I really needed was to get more rounds under my belt, and I did that on Friday. I was relaxed, maybe a little too relaxed, and I could've upped the pace, but the most important thing was to get back to winning ways."

He joked: "And the performance was certainly better than my last one!"

Sauerland added: "We are trying to build a heavyweight champion. Rome wasn't built in a day.

"Matty is in the right place with Peter Fury and we're thrilled to see him back."