Lauren Price won every round in a one-sided fight against Jessica McCaskill on Saturday night in the Utilita Arena, Cardiff.

The hopes of the Cardiff crowd came to fruition as Price put on a display that justified the bookies short odds, and lived up to her billing of pre-fight favourite.

Price wasn’t in any trouble throughout the fight, aside from with the referee at times, and controlled the pace as she wanted.

Sharp jabs and 1-2 combinations landed accurately on McCaskill over the eight completed rounds.

McCaskill never got going. Slowly inching forward, trying to be the aggressor, McCaskill only ended up moving forward into punches that she was struggling to avoid.

When McCaskill did manage to slip under a Price back hand, McCaskill would end up underneath Price’s left armpit in a headlock, rather than being able to counter.

McCaskill looked crass at times with over-exaggerated upper body movement and wild swinging punches. This was in contrast to Price’s tidy work and precision punching.

There was a lot of holding and, inevitably, head clashes. The worst being in round 5 when Price accidentally headbutted McCaskill in the left eye behind a right hand lead.

The swelling on McCaskill’s left eye was immediate and made things from bad to worse for the champion.

It was more of the same for the rest of the fight, with Price landing flurries of punches and McCaskill either being to far out of range to respond or ending up in a grapple.

The ref gave both fighters numerous warnings for holding.

The referee asked the Dr to look at the swelling over McCaskill’s left eye at the start of round 8. The Dr gave the ok for the fight to go ahead.

The Dr changed his mind not long afterwards, advising the referee to call the fight off within two seconds of the start of round 9, which meant that the outcome would be decided by the judges scorecards.

All three judges scored the fight 90-82 in favour of Lauren Price. The win means that Price now holds the WBA, IBO and Ring Magazine belts.

After the fight, Price told Andy Scott on the Sky Sports broadcast that this is only the beginning. 

‘I believe this is just the start. This (Cardiff) is where I want the big nights. I want to go on and create a legacy.

‘I enjoyed myself in there tonight, I’m only going to get better.

‘The dream is to sell out the Principality Stadium in years to come.’

McCaskill was humble in defeat, congratulating Lauren Price and handing her the Ring Magazine Belt, but she wasn’t happy with how the fight ended.

‘They should let the champion go out on her shield. Let me have my last four minutes, then if Lauren wins, she wins’. McCaskill said after the fight.

‘Lauren is the only person to take belts off me. I’m so proud of what she’s doing, she’ll be great for boxing.’

Asked if she can come back from this defeat, McCaskill told Andy Scott. ‘I can rebound from anything.  I grew up homeless so getting punched in the face is nothing’.

There are some mouth-watering fights on the horizon. Fights with fellow Welterweight belt holders Tasha Jonas and Sandy Ryan would be great domestic World Title clashes.

Ben Shalom of Boxxer said they will take a few days, and then decide what the next steps are.

We await to see, but it will hopefully be big fights only for the foreseeable future for Lauren Price.