Boxing: Wenton plans to fight on

RICHIE WENTON, the British super-bantamweight champion, broke his silence yesterday following the death of his last opponent, Bradley Stone, 13 days ago. 'I'll fight on in his memory,' he said. 'I had tremendous encouragement from Bradley's family to go on boxing and that's one of the main reasons why I am going to carry on.'

Wenton revealed that a phone call from Barry McGuigan helped him. 'Some nights you don't sleep and you can't look anyone in the eye. It is God's truth that I cannot look at the Lonsdale belt that I won. I hid it away,' he said.

Chris Pyatt of Leicester goes into his second World Boxing Organisation middleweight defence at Sheffield today facing something of an identity crisis. There is a school of opinion - and this includes Steve Collins, his Irish opponent - that believes that since 37 of his 45 bouts have been at one weight down, Pyatt is not up to life as a fully-fledged middleweight. 'He's only a very good light- middle,' said Collins.