Turkish Boxer Samil Sam is worthy champion, admits Francis

He hit with a flurry of hard punches to head and body and Francis went down with one minute 56 seconds to go in the seventh. The Brit scrambled back to his feet but would soon made a second visit to the canvas.

Sam put him down with another hard series with 1min 26secs to go and the referee eventually stopped the contest with 1min 14secs left in the round.

The bout began at a relatively slow pace, although Sam was the more aggressive.

He kept going forward in the second round and landed his first combination – a right to the body and a left to the head – in the middle of the round.

Francis kept up his defensive attitude in the next. He landed a few jabs, but Sam had a more shots coming through. Both landed good shots towards the end of the round.

In the fourth, Sam had Francis on the ropes but could not make much of an impact, and the pattern remained in the fifth with Sam staying on the attack and Francis defending.

Sam landed several hard shots in the sixth, including two rights to the head, to make Francis look a little helpless towards the end. Things would get worse in the seventh round as Sam, a former world amateur champion, made sure he has still never fought past the eighth round as a professional.

Francis was too defensive to seriously threaten Sam, who recorded his 18th win in his 18th fight, while Francis dropped to 23-11-1.

Francis hurt his back in a recent car accident but said he was not hampered by the injury.

"Sinan is a strong guy and in the end landed a body shot with maximum effort," said Francis.

"I’m not going to use the accident as an excuse. He hit me in the rips but it was the back that was injured in the accident.

"Obviously, I’m disappointed but I think I did quite well in the first six rounds.

"My boxing abilities should have been enough to beat him, though, but at the end of the day it didn’t happen."