NOTTINGHAM, England -- Paul Daley (Pictures) marked his return to action with a first-round knockout against previously unbeaten Bojan Kosednar at Cage Warriors "Enter The Rough House 7" Saturday at the Harvey Haddon Sports Centre.
Daley took the initiative early and looked poised to make short work of heavy underdog Kosednar. The Englishman's well-tooled standup skills were on full display as he mixed up his attacks to outfox his Slovenian foe.
The British star landed a hard knee to the left side of Kosednar's ribs. Daley followed up with a hard right that floored the man from Ljubljana.
Daley looked like he hadn't missed a step while he'd been away, moving and unloading at will to put Kosednar down twice more in quick succession through punches.
With seven seconds left in the opening round he fired off a deadly left hook that put Kosednar out cold. Kosednar, who took his first professional loss, eventually left the cage on his own accord.
A teeming crowd was overcome with euphoria as Daley sent a welcome reminder of his talents to his American employers, EliteXC, who are expected to stage his next bout.
In highly anticipated welterweight action, unbeaten Norwegian Simeon Thoresen (Pictures) recorded the most publicly prominent win of his career with the scalping of Team Colosseum's Matt Thorpe (Pictures).
Submission ace Thoresen, whose eight victories have all come within the distance, looked a star in the making as he made short work of Cage Warriors' mainstay Thorpe, forcing the Englishman to tap from a kimura.
Team Rough House's "Judo" Jim Wallhead (Pictures) passed the biggest test of his career against Fabricio Nascimento (Pictures) in arguably the fight of the night.
Wallhead, who holds wins over UFC vets Jason Tan and Steven Lynch (Pictures), has chalked up some hard-fought and impressive decision victories in his career and Saturday was no different.
The Leicester, England native was dominant and looked every inch the star package he's regarded as domestically. Italy-based Brazilian Nascimento rarely threatened and favored some off-the-cuff tactics as he looked to get back in the fight.
Nascimento's gamesmanship, prolonged facial expressions and gesturing was spotted by referee Marc Goddard (Pictures) who warned the BJJ black belt.
But Wallhead was far from being flustered by Nascimento's antics and escaped a brief scare, a leglock attempt, to rack up a deserved and well-received unanimous decision.
Abdul Mohamed (Pictures) and Andre Winner (Pictures), two of Britain's finest lightweights, couldn't be separated as they fought to a majority draw.
While the well-matched pair cancelled each other's efforts out, Mohamed did enjoy some success with his heralded wrestling skills and took Winner down repeatedly.
Mohamed, who's recently linked up with the Wolfslair Academy, looked to wear down Team Rough House's lightweight standout, but Winner was more than equal to his opponent's advances.
Paul "Metabolic" McVeigh battled back from a first-round onslaught to stop Steve McCombe with a rear-naked choke in the second and retain his Cage Warriors bantamweight title.
Former pro boxer Wayne Buck (Pictures) fell in the first loss of his career against Italian Matteo Minonzio.
Nottingham man Buck suffered a cut under his eye and with his vision impaired the bout was brought to an early stop after three minutes of the first.
Team Rough House's submission whiz Lee Livingstone (Pictures) improved his record to 5-1 with Doncaster's Wayne Murray having no answer to a well-crafted triangle choke.
Cliff Hall of Nottingham's Total Dojo forced Rocci Williams (Pictures) to tap to a guillotine choke in the second round, while Chris Cooper (Pictures) grounded and pounded his way to victory over Norway's Tommy Rasmussen (Pictures).
Team Rough House's Eddie Podolski (Pictures) bested John Brotherhood while Peter McGurk (Pictures) overcame Stoke-on-Trent's John Phillips (Pictures).
In kickboxing action Newcastle's Lee Donald lost out to Team Rough House's Kristoff Woodhouse (Pictures).