AFTER two battling displays in defeat, St Joseph's fighter Gavin Gwynne has been backed to make it third time lucky when hunting the British lightweight title.

The 30-year-old from Nelson was stopped in the sixth round of his Fight Camp clash with Belfast big hitter James Tennyson (26-3) on Saturday night.

Gwynne (12-2) won plenty of praise for his battling performance in the garden of promoter Eddie Hearn's mansion in Essex but left without the belt.

It was a similar story a year ago when the Newport-based fighter pushed fellow Welshman Joe Cordina all the way in a fight for the British and Commonwealth titles only to lose on points at the O2 Arena in London.

Gwynne will now lick his wounds before a return to the ring, hopefully in late September, and another push for success.

South Wales Argus:

"Gavin has had 14 fights and two of them have been British title fights. He is still a beginner in the game really," said his trainer Tony Borg.

"Tennyson has had more knockout wins that he has had fights, so you have to take the positives from it and when an opportunity like that comes around to go for the British title then you are going to take it with both hands.

"He has kept himself in the mix because he didn't disgrace himself and he will come back stronger. Tennyson will move onto the world stage now – he's too good for European – and Gavin will get another shot.

"He could have been sat at home on the weekend watching the fight and someone else going for the British title.

"He has fought for the Welsh title and won it and fought for the British title and put in two good performances. Let's hope that it's third time lucky."

Promoter Hearn called the St Joseph's fighter a "warrior" and praised him for putting on a show: "Hats off to Gwynne, massive respect. This is what we want at Fight Camp, thrilling fights."

South Wales Argus:

Borg was a little frustrated that his man let Tennyson display his power for a fifth stoppage on the spin since losing a shot at the IBF world super-featherweight title.

"It was a great effort but it wasn't the result that we wanted, we wanted to come away with the belt," said Borg.

"What we wanted him to do was to not hold his feet in the first couple of rounds, for him to be busy with his hands and move Tennyson around.

"But he just felt comfortable in there after the second or third round and thought that he was going to stand toe to toe with him.

"You just don't do that with a guy like Tennyson, he's a very big puncher at this weight and caught Gavin with a good shot on the top of his head.

"He said he had felt alright with the body shots but that buzzed him for a couple of seconds and he couldn't recover from it.

"People will talk about that fight for some time because there were five exciting rounds and there was no disgrace, he will definitely be back."