Conor Benn needed less than four minutes to detonate his right hand and KO Chris Van Heerden.
Benn has progressed seamlessly since his debut as a raw novice in 2016 and has established himself as one of British boxing's biggest stars. And he dominated Van Heerden from the first bell before landing his 14th stoppage in 21 fights.
South African Van Heerden was being lined up as Benn's final opponent before he graduated to world level, but the 34-year-old was fighting for just the third time in two-and-a-half years. His last fight lasted all of two minutes when he suffered a cut from a headbutt against Jaron Ennis in December 2020.
In the meantime, Benn took his record to 20-0 with victories over Samuel Vargas, Adrian Granados and Chris Algieri, with the latter stopped in brutal fashion in the fourth round two weeks before last Christmas. And he looked to make an equally-fast start in Manchester, forcing Van Heerden to hold in the opening session.
Van Heerden enjoyed success of his own with his counterpunching style but Benn began to land his left hook with unerring spite. The Brit made a patient start to the second round before a right hand dropped Van Heerden in the corner and he was unable to recover.
On the undercard, Chris Billam-Smith stopped Tommy McCarthy in the eighth round of their rematch, nine months after eking out a split-decision victory over his rival. Billam-Smith retained his Commonwealth and European cruiserweight titles after dropping McCarthy with a right hand at the end of a punishing sequence of shots.
Campbell Hatton won his seventh professional contest but was taken the sixth-round distance by Ezequiel Gregores who had only won three of his previous 12 fights.
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Alycia Baumgardner made a successful first defence of the world title she won from Terri Harper last November. The American stunned Doncaster's Harper with a fourth-round stoppage and was never troubled by challenger Edith Matthysse who lost every round.
Jack Cullen returned to winning ways with an eight-round points victory over Vladimir Belujsky. Cullen was stopped by Kevin Sadjo in a challenge for the European title last December but was never in trouble this time around as he was awarded every session.
