I feel a lot better after that than what I did after the Miguel Vazquez fight, believe it or not. Obviously I got the result against Vazquez but there was all the stick that I got with it [because of the decision]. I went out on my shield last night.
To be fair I thought he [Jeremias Ponce] was going to finish us in the first round. He hit us quite early with a left hook to the body and nearly crippled us. He poured it on and I thought to myself if I can just survive the first couple of rounds maybe heโll tire himself out. Because the second round he tried to finish us as well. He just didnโt seem to tire. He kept coming and coming and coming. It just wasnโt to be.
He could have dropped us as many times but I would have kept getting up. The corner had said to us the round before, youโre getting one more round or Iโm going to chuck the towel in. I said no, no donโt chuck the towel in, let us keep going. Iโll be able to turn it round, Iโll be able to turn it round. He was standing there. He was taking some shots himself.
He was winning the rounds but we were in them. It was just the body shot caught us. Maybe the first minute and a half of each round, we were starting sharp but then heโd touch us to the body and it was just survival mode. It was taking us half a round to get past the body shot. Then start the round again, then start sharp again. It was back and forth, back and forth but he managed to catch us in the right place in the 10th and I didnโt manage to survive.
I had said I can turn it round, donโt chuck the towel in so when the towel came in I was disappointed. You seen us turn round โ โwhat are you chucking the towel in for?โ When the ref let me go on I was happy. I was hurt but I was happy. I thought Iโd try and survive but I couldnโt do it.
I think the referee made the right decision. If I had been knocked down with headshots then you could have said what are you doing but they were body shots and they werenโt really, really sickening body shots. It was just accumulation of all the body shots put together through the fight that done it.
I said [to Steve Gray] look it didnโt bother me you chucking the towel back out. Iโd keep going. It was a hard night at the office but weโll come back. Probably trying to go a level that weโre not, trying to push for world level. I think last night and the Vazquez fight probably showed that weโre not there. Weโre probably a level down from that but thereโs nothing wrong with that. We can be in some good fights still.
The crowds up here are very passionate, they get behind their fighters. Theyโll get back behind us again, I know they will. A tough pill to swallow but weโll be back. Weโve just got to find that level that weโre at. World levelโs probably a little bit of a push too far. But thereโs nothing wrong with being a European level fighter and fighting the rest of the domestic bunch.
James Tennyson [who wants to move up] would be a bit of a humdinger. We donโt knock fights back. We take fights.
Thatโs something that would get the blood flowing. Iโve won the British title outright, Iโve got that in the house. I donโt really want to go back to the British level, Iโm past that. Tennysonโs probably the same as me, a top level European fighter but when he steps up to that world level, heโs fallen short a few times and thatโs the same as us. Thereโs nothing wrong with fighting kids like that. Theyโll be good exciting fights.
We donโt know how good Jeremias Ponceโs going to be. We could have found a little rough diamond there. Heโs only 24, heโs knocked 18 out now so a dangerous opponent. Weโll see whatโs next.