VETERAN James Baggley was the toast of Tenbury-based martial arts club Roughnecks after winning every round of a white-collar boxing match.

The 49-year-old crossed over from mixed martial arts but still managed to outpace and outclass opponent Luke Dayas, 15 years his junior, at Perdiswell Leisure Centre, Worcester.

Trainer Simon Pearce said: "We were all proud and excited when the promoters selected James to top the bill, it was a credit to all of the team that helped to train him.

“The lad he was fighting looked the part and it was quite a sight to see James standing broken nose to broken nose for the photos with a bigger, younger man with a tattooed face.

“James trains mostly submission wrestling and Thai boxing with us and was crossing over to boxing so when he drew the hard man, we were all thinking someone would get battered.

“James came out landing lovely straight shots and quickly started to control the fight. He managed to get Luke on a couple of standing eight counts before going on to win comfortably.”

The victory was the icing on the cake following a good spell for Roughnecks.

All rounder and team cornerstone Tom Morris was graded a prestigious purple belt, while Pearce earned a brown belt in Brazilian Jujitsu at Trojans Worcester after 14 years of training.

The club also awarded team status to Harry Lewis, who started training at 16, while Kevin Smart was persuaded to try the Reebok Spartans Race challenge despite not being a runner, finishing 42nd and eighth in his age group.

“I was amazed when I started to pass marathon runners and muscle-packed sports men were giving up by the side of me. I can only put it down to the all round training regime and mental edge contact sports has given me,” said Smart.