Edwards vs Moreno results: Lewis Ritson bounces back with win at new weight

Former British lightweight champion Lewis Ritson lost his last fight, a challenge for the European lightweight title, and decided to move up to 140 pounds. His debut at the new weight had mixed results, but he got the win, beating German Argentino Benitez over 10 rounds.

Judges had the fight for Ritson on scores of 98-92, 98-92, and 99-91. BLH had it 97-93 for Ritson. The win nets Ritson a minor WBA title.

Ritson (18-1, 11 KO) was the clear and deserved winner, but Argentina’s Benitez (21-4, 9 KO) made a fight of it, landing a good deal of shots on the 25-year-old Ritson. It was far from a perfect performance, and as the commentary put it, left some questions about his future at the new weight.

“I wasn’t very happy with the performance,” Ritson admitted after the fight. “He was a slippery customer, and it was probably 10 rounds I needed, to be fair.”

Promoter Eddie Hearn mentioned the possibility of Ritson facing the winner of next weekend’s fight between European champion Joe Hughes (17-3-1, 7 KO) and British champion Robbie Davies Jr (17-1, 12 KO), but Ritson may want another fight at least before trying on something like that.

Earlier results:

• Chris Adaway PTS-4 Tom Ansell (39-37). An upset here, as Adaway (9-53-4, 1 KO) stops a 19-fight losing streak and takes Ansell’s undefeated record, dropping him to 6-1 (1 KO).
• Jason Quigley TKO-2 Mathias Eklund. Easy work for Ireland’s Quigley (16-0, 12 KO) in what was his UK pro debut. Eklund drops to 10-2-2 (4 KO).
• Sean McGoldrick PTS-6 Sean Cairns. This was the first fight under trainer Jamie Moore for McGoldrick (8-0, 2 KO), a Welsh fighter at 118/122. Cairns falls to 3-2 (0 KO).
• Lewis Syrett PTS-4 Danail Stoyanov. Middleweight Syrett is now 6-0 (2 KO), while Stoyanov is 3-6 (1 KO).