Fitzgerald gets professional career off to a winning start

The Preston light-middleweight was in impressive form as he defeated Chippenham's Ben Heap at the Manchester Arena.

The Commonwealth Games gold medal winner produced a classy and busy performance to stop his opponent in the third round.

Competing on the under card of the blockbuster Carl Frampton/Scott Quigg super bantamweight world title fight, Fitzgerald made his presence felt immediately as he landed a huge left in the opening seconds of the fight.

Heap struggled to contain the 24-year-old's Preston star's greater physicality and started to wince as Fitzgerald landed some huge body shots.

It was a left-hander to the body which saw Heap drop to the canvas in the third round and the referee stepped-in to end the fight soon after with a clean right-hand to the head.

His performance drew some admiring glances from a number of interested observers ringside including former super middleweight champion Carl Froch.

"He looks strong," said Froch. "He's got the amateur pedigree and we expected him to go in there and win.

"We were not quite sure how he would win, but there were some impressive sets of body shots."

Fitzgerald himself was thrilled with his performance.

"It's a great start to get the stoppage,"he said. "I wanted it.

"I thought I caught him early and I think I went looking for it a bit too much because I wanted to get him out of there and I thought I could after catching him early.

"I'm just happy to get this first one out of the way."