Dagenham's Kevin Mitchell confounded his critics and stunned the experts with a masterful display of boxing and punching to batter previously unbeaten Manchester rival John Murray, the reigning British and European lightweight champion, to defeat in eight sensational rounds in what was without doubt the best domestic fight in Britain so far this year. The bout was for the lightly regarded WBO Intercontinental lightweight title, but you tomorrow his previous high world ranking, the fights was in effect the world title eliminator.

Liverpool's Echo Arena was packed to the rafters, and primed for something special after a somewhat disappointing undercard that saw local boy Tony Bellew play it safe for 12 rounds against Ovill McKenzie, and the WBO super featherweight title fight between Ricky Burns and Nicky Cook finish inside a minute and a half, with Cook claiming a back injury.

Many, including this writer had thought that Manchester's 26-year-old tough guy Murray, ranked second by the WBC at lightweight, would just be too strong and too tough for Mitchell, especially as the Londoner was coming off a devastating third-round defeat to Aussie brawler Michael Katsidis in his last fight, and had spent a the year in between ring appearances, by his own admission, partying hard.

Although 26-year-old Mitchell (32-1, 24 ko's) claimed to be in the best shape of his career, for the first four rounds of the fight the bookies who made Murray a solid 1-4 favorite looked as if they had it spot on, as the Mancunian bulldozed through everything Mitchell threw at him and proceeded to rough up his smaller and slighter opponent whenever he got the chance.

But by the fifth-round it suddenly became apparent that Mitchell was connecting time and again with blurring combination punches while all the while avoiding any hurtful shots from his opponent. As the rounds wore on it became clearer that Murray was not hurting Mitchell, and rapidly running out of ideas.

The British and European lightweight champion has never been a dynamite puncher, and has instead relied upon wearing down his opponents with relentless pressure. The problem was he could not find Mitchell with any heavy shots, was clearly a yards lower than his fleet footed opponent, and as his eyes began to swell Murray was left increasingly chasing shadows while Mitchell was able to potshot him with sweet counterpunches to perfection.

The writing was on the wall in round seven when a combination from Mitchell had Murray in deep trouble for the first time in his career, and although the Manchester fighter tried to force the action at the beginning of the eighth round, a vicious left uppercut floored him after a minute for the first time in his career, and the follow-up barrage of shots left referee James Davies with no option other than to stop the fight.

The victory for Mitchell was aided by his ability to follow the battle plan laid down by his esteemed trainer Jimmy Tibbs to a tee. When Mitchell's decision to us attempt to slug it out with Murray in the opening round looks to be playing straight into his opponents hands, the Dagenham fighter had the wherewithal to follow his trainers instructions and get on his bicycle for the next few rounds, extinguishing any threat of danger presented by his plodding opponent.

Murray saw his record slipped to 31-1 with 18 knockouts. His trainer Joe Gallagher will have been particularly concerned how is fighter seemed to be unable to pull the trigger time and again when he had his opponent on the ropes. Murray has always been a fighter who absorbs punches, but against a sharpshooter of Mitchell's caliber, that macho mentality ultimately proved to be disastrous.

Suddenly Kevin Mitchell has gatecrashed the world rankings and will be rated in the top five by most governing bodies when the new rankings are divulged early next month. The WBC's lightweight champion is the Californian-based Mexican veteran Humberto Soto, a 14 year pro with 32 KO's on his ledger but also seven defeats. If Mitchell's promoter Frank Warren can lure the Mexican to the UK with a big purse, it would pack out a London football stadium, and and if Mitchell can put on a similar performance to the one he achieved Saturday, Britain could have its first WBC world lightweight champion since Jim Watt in the 1970s.