It was a weekend of shocks, surprises, rapid knockouts, and new champions being crowned as an action-packed few days of fight action well and truly delivered.

It all kicked off on Friday night in Liverpool, where Cuban Dayan Gonzalez solidified his claims as one of the biggest contenders in the featherweight division.

Up against the hard-hitting Thai Wira Mikham, it took Gonzalez just 35 seconds to claim the stoppage win and pick up the vacant IBO title.

On a stacked undercard, there were also stoppage wins for Steven Cairns, Jack Turner, and Nelson Birchall, while JJ Metcalf returned from 18 months out of the ring to secure a convincing points win over Alan Velazquez.

To Saturday, and where better to start than at Wembley Arena for the next installment of Queensberry’s Magnificent 7?

In the main event, British and European middleweight honors were up for grabs as Brad Pauls looked to continue his rich vein of form against former British champ Denzel Bentley.

However, the challenger proved that despite two defeats in his last six, he certainly isn’t done yet with a terrific performance to dethrone Pauls, which included a 10th-round knockdown.

The undercard was equally impressive, with five bouts ending by way of stoppage.

Lawrence Okolie marked his heavyweight debut in clinical fashion with a first-round KO of Hussein Muhamed, while David Adeleye returned from a 13-month absence to stop English champion Sol Dacres in less than 90 seconds.

There were also stoppage wins for Pierce O’Leary, Royston Barney-Smith, and Aloys Youmbi, while Sam Noakes was taken to points for just the second time in his 16-fight career as he put in a fantastic display of boxing to defend his British and Commonwealth Lightweight titles.

On the Top Tier show in Brentwood, Ben Crocker picked up the vacant IBF European Super-Lightweight Title with a points victory over Stelio Papadopoulos, while Constantin Ursu once again proved to be a serious threat at welterweight after blasting away the undefeated Lewis Booth inside two rounds.

It was a frustrating night up in Sheffield, though, with two horrific cuts causing the IBF and WBO European Super-Featherweight clash between Danny Quartermaine and Jack Bateson to result in a technical draw after just two rounds.

On to the Matchroom show in Puerto Rico now, where Aussie Liam Paro was aiming to make a successful first defense of his IBF World Super-Lightweight Title against the undefeated American Richardson Hitchins.

After a good start from Paro, Hitchins soon found his rhythm, and from his awkward stance, Paro could never properly pin him down and get to work as much as he would have wanted to. The judges scored it in favor of Hitchins by split decision, and we had a new world champion.

Hitchins now has plenty of options on the table, with the likes of a unification bout with Teofimo Lopez or a first defense against the hungry Jack Catterall both realistic fights.

On the undercard, there were a couple of big surprises as not one but TWO of Matchroom’s top prospects suffered the first losses of their careers.

The 9-0 Jalil Hackett was outpointed by Jose Vazquez before Marc Castro went down by split decision at the hands of Agustin Quintana.

Two huge upsets for two prospects who should really be beating that caliber of fighter.

And finally, to Phoenix in Arizona, where it was a world title rematch doubleheader as Emanuel Navarrete looked to defend his WBO World Super-Featherweight Title against Oscar Valdez, and Rafael Espinoza took on Robeisy Ramirez in a rematch of their clash from earlier this year.

There was to be no changing of the guard here, however, with Espinoza once again getting the TKO win in bizarre fashion and Navarrete going one better than he did last time by becoming the first man to stop Oscar Valdez with a dominant performance.

There’s another busy weekend of shows ahead of us this weekend, from Monte Carlo to Liverpool, before the big one next week... Oleksandr Usyk vs. Tyson Fury 2.