Ingle's victory upsets Hamed's summer plans

Paul Ingle ruined Naseem Hamed's summer fight plans when he survived a week of problems and a brief knock-down to retain hisInternational Boxing Federation featherweight title in the 11th round against New York's Junior Jones at Madison Square Garden on Saturday.

Hamed's management trio of brothers - Riath, Nabeel and Murad - gathered at ringside hopeful to secure the services of Jones, a former world champion whose best fighting days were four years ago, for Hamed's long overdue Las Vegas debut in August. They left disappointed and eager not to talk about a rematch with Ingle, whom Hamed stopped last year in front of less than 7,000 paying fans.

Ingle hated his week in New York - "I've been treated like a dog," he said - away from his blessed Yorkshire home in Scarborough, but his performance was eagerly received by the American public and the sport's premier paymasters, HBO. Comparison to the impact of Ken Buchanan, the Scottish boxer who became the pale and painfully thin darling of the New York boxing fraternity 30 years ago, maybe a little premature, but Ingle certainly became a star in the famous ring on Saturday night.

When the brawl was finally halted after 1min 16sec of round 11, Jones, whose face is incapable of masking suffering, was close to collapse. However, just a few minutes earlier in round nine a right cross had connected cleanly and Ingle had found himself on the canvas staring at the lights and listening to the howls of 16,000 fans. "It was a good, clean shot, and any featherweight would have gone down," said Ingle.

At the end two of the three judges had Ingle in front of a fight that the British boxer had quite rightly threatened to withdraw frombecause of illegal changes to the weigh-in procedure, and thecontroversial selection of three local judges.

Both incidents run counter to IBF rules and regulations. Frank Maloney, the manager of both Ingle and Lewis, was understandably relieved yesterday morning. He said: "It has been a long week for Paul and I'm just glad we are going home as champions."

Ingle will defend his title on 15 July in London with or without Lewis on the bill.

Meanwhile, on the same night in another historical ring at Wembley Arena, Birmingham's Robert McCracken failed miserably to win Keith Holmes's World Boxing Council middleweight title when a cut and a swelling around his left eye forced the French referee Alfred Asaro to call a halt in the eleventh round.

McCracken, 31, lost for the first time in 10 years and 34 fights, but it was the dire quality of most of the men he has easily beaten that left him vulnerable against Washington DC's Holmes.

McCracken had no idea how to alter the pace or deal effectively with a southpaw, and as the rounds passed, Holmes, who is an exceptional southpaw, moved steadily in front. McCracken was down in round three and never stopped trying in what was a lost cause from that point, and when it was over he simply accepted defeat in silence.