HALSTEAD Boxing Club held their annual open show at the Earls Colne Recreational Club.

There were 17 exciting bouts, including six wins out of eight for the hosts, while Harwich Boxing Club's Rio Gordon was fighting for the England Boxing under-69kg Central Area title belt.

For the home club, Halstead's Joe Bonito and junior boxer Luke Smee stole the show with three high-octane performances. Luke Raven and Mikey McCarthy also put in two very competent performances in their skills bouts and junior Louie Palmer claimed a unanimous points decision against Malachi Flowerdew from Progress Club.

Halstead seniors Keiron Elliott and Mitchell Forshaw boxed each other over three exciting rounds.

The reason the two club-mates faced each other was that their respective scheduled bouts had fallen through at the last minute so they agreed to box each other rather than not box at all.

Mitchell came out on top with a unanimous points decision.

Also on the bill was senior Halstead middleweight Terry Lucas, who was up against Reon Elliston in a tough entertaining bout over the three round distance but Lucas went down to a unanimous points decision.

Next on was senior Josh Legrove against Nana Donkor of Crawley.

Legrove scored well with flurries of punches at the start but was up against an extremely fast and sharp puncher in Donkor and after a thrilling and hard-fought contest it was Legrove who ground out a magnificent split points decision.

Halstead's top senior light heavyweight Jason Bradley was up against a very tough and explosive puncher in Ola Alausa of London's Double Jab Club.

After each in turn dominated the action with devastating punches to head and body, halfway though the second round Bradley was caught high on the head with a punch that put him down.

As he tried to get up, Alausa caught Bradley flush on the jaw and the referee stepped in to stop the bout and Alausa was disqualified for hitting Bradley while he was still trying to get up on his feet from the ring floor.

Halstead head coach George Cook said, while all the performances were good, he was particularly impressed with senior Joe Bonito and junior Luke Smee, as Smee is on a run of wins four out of four and Bonito has come back with a bang against a very tough and quality opponent.

Cook said: "I would just like to thank all my coaches for doing a terrific job and for all the sponsors who sponsored the show.

"Paul and Tracey Smee for the refreshments all day long and the photographers Chris and Katie Raven and all the other volunteers.

"Thanks to everyone for making this show a big success."