Ryan Toms gunning for Southern Area top spot

Dec 15 2009 Uxbridge Gazette

BOXER Ryan Toms is already dreaming of big things in 2010.

Toms maintained his 100 per cent professional record with an emphatic points win over Ryan Clarke at the York Hall Bethnal Green last Sunday.

And the ex-army man, who trains out of Hayes Gym, now wants to move up to six and eight round fights en route to a crack at the Southern Area Light-Middleweight title sometime next year.

He said: "I spoke to the matchmaker and he's already gunning for a Southern Area title shot for me next year.

"I definitely want to move up to six and eight round fights now. Over the longer fights I'm confident I'll get more stoppages because I make people work and throw punches they don't want to throw which saps their energy."

Toms, from Northolt, was a comfortable 40-37 winner over Clarke, not fellow Lincolnshire boxer Steve Spence, as originally billed.

While Spence was stopped in less than a round elsewhere on the bill, Clarke, considerably taller than Toms at 6ft 2in, and four pounds heavier, proved a tougher proposition, catching the 27-year-old a couple of times in the opening two rounds.

However, Toms forced his opponent on to the retreat with some strong body shots in rounds three and four, and had Clarke pinned in his own corner in the last 30 seconds of the fight.

He had no regrets at going the distance, but claimed he would have stopped Clarke given one more round.

He added: "Clarke was durable, but to be honest it could have been stopped in the fourth as I was hitting him at will in the corner.

"I'm not sure he would have come out for the fifth if it had been a six-rounder, and the referee told me the way it was going he'd have stopped it anyway if there had been another round."