Unbeaten Canberra boxer David Toussaint brushed aside controversy at the weigh-in and pre-fight mind games with a technical knockout victory over Junior Talipeau.
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The referee called an end to the fight one minute and 45 seconds into the fifth round as Toussaint improved his perfect record to 10-0 at the Hellenic Club on Saturday night.
Toussaint dominated the fight and began to ramp up the attack in the fourth round before rocking the 32-year-old early in the fifth.
The hometown favourite took advantage and before long the referee had called an end to the contest, despite Toussaint believing his opponent had a few more rounds left in him.
"A couple of times I landed a few good shots on him and I was like 'nup, this guy is hard and a tough guy, he's not just going to go down'," Toussaint said.
"When I was giving it to him at the end there, after a while I was like 'Oh man, he's not just going to go down. Maybe I should ease up, still got another five rounds'.
"I'm just glad I put the foot down for that little bit longer and had the ref pull him up.
"It's hard to pick and choose when you should go for those opportunities. I'd seen that I'd hurt him and he wasn't giving much fight back, so I just kept on him and it paid off."
But it almost wasn't to be after Talipeau came in almost two kilograms heavy at the weigh-in on Friday and threatened to walk away from the fight.
"It's just unprofessional," Toussaint said after he weighed in at 72.05kg.
"I train hard, I don't make weight easily, and then to have someone come in nearly two kilos heavy, it was like he didn't even try to get there.
"It was a bit rough, but who knows — maybe he was just struggling to make the weight but even then I knew that I'd won the first battle on the scales and there was something off about it.
"I just figured he thought he needed the advantage or he was just trying to mess with me. Either way I'd already won."
The bad blood continued to boil just before the fight as Talipeau's music hit — Toussaint was made to wait five minutes before Talipeau actually made his way to the ring.
"After all that I was just like 'If he thinks he needs to do this just to put me off or whatever then I'm just going to let him do it. I'm just going to stick to my plan and just box his ears off'. And that's what I did," Toussaint said.
The win was Toussaint's third of the year and now the focus shifts to keeping in shape ahead of what he hopes will be a big 2017.
"[Talipeau] is a huge name to have on the resume now so it'll be interesting to see what opportunities can come," Toussaint said.
