• London light-heavyweight stops veteran Reeves in fifth round • Daniel Dubois grows in stature with quickfire knockout

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Anthony Yarde moved closer to a world light-heavyweight title fight by stopping the veteran American Travis Reeves in the fifth round at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

On the undercard his fellow Londoner Daniel Dubois enhanced his burgeoning reputation with a stunning second-round knockout of Razvan Cojanu.

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Yarde is targeting a showdown against Sergey Kovalev, the WBO champion at 175lbs, by the end of the year and consolidated his position as the governing body’s No 1 ranked fighter in the division.

The end came at the midway point of a scheduled 10-round bout when a bruising overhand right from Yarde stiffened Reeves’ legs. As the 38-year-old Reeves retreated to the ropes, the referee Marcus McDonnell was quick to call a halt and Yarde extended his perfect professional record to 18-0, with 17 wins coming inside the distance.

Dubois made light of his Romanian opponent. Cojanu went the full 12 rounds with the former WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker two years ago but found Dubois (now 10-0 with nine knock-outs) a much tougher prospect.

The Royal Albert Hall is steeped in boxing history, having staged its first fight in 1918, but only one professional boxing show had been held there in the past 20 years, headlined by Billy Joe Saunders in 2012.