Four fighters put on fantastic performances as Carlisle Villa ABC made a great start to the New Year at the Kendal ABC dinner show.

Leighton Nimmo, David Quinn, Marc Haughan and Joe Kelly all represented Villa at the show at the Cumbria Grand Hotel, Grange-over-Sands, on Friday evening.

Nimmo started the show off with a well-contested non-scoring skills and development bout against Ryan Jones, of Barrow ABC.

Quinn was then the first boxer from the Carlisle club to compete in a scoring bout against Stockport-based Paramount ABC’s Roy Maughan.

Maughan won the first round to take an early lead as Quinn was just not quite anticipating the Paramount man’s moves quickly enough.

But Quinn raised the tempo in the second round and took the bout to Maughan, forcing him back on to the ropes as he landed solid shots.

Indeed, Maughan was starting to tire and was holding on every time Quinn came in close, with the Villa lad piling on the pressure as the referee stepped in to issue a standing eight count against Maughan.

And Quinn continued to apply the pressure to the final bell to even things up at one round apiece.

Maughan was now really struggling to cope with Quinn’s work-rate and was on the back foot for the remainder of the bout, with Quinn winning by a unanimous points decision.

Next up for Villa was Haughan who was up against Louis Smith, of Barrow ABC.

After a quiet start, the bout livened up in the final 30 seconds of the first round when Smith landed a straight backhand to the chin of Haughan. He took it well but was forced back momentarily, allowing Smith to take the first round.

Haughan knew he needed to pick things up in the second round and pushed forward, using his jab a lot more.

When the opportunity came, he scored with a crisp backhand to take the second to leave it all down to the third and final round to decide who would win the bout.

Both boxers met in the centre of the ring and stood toe-to-toe for the majority of the round, with Haughan edging it by landing the cleaner shots to win the bout unanimously.

Last up for Carlisle Villa was Kelly who was matched against Barrow’s Brandon Smith in a youth contest.

Kelly boxed superbly in all three rounds to win on all three judges’ scorecards by a unanimous points decision with Smith simply unable to handle Kelly’s superior reach advantage.