Danny 'Cassius' Connor says he is enjoying the moment of being champion from his local area after repeating his victory against bitter rival Chris Evangelou last Saturday at Wembley Arena.

The likeable 26-year-old from Hackbridge retained his Southern area light-welterweight crown with a 10-round 97-93 points decision in the opening Sky Sports live televised card.

Both boxers picked up where they left off from their first bash back in September and Connor had the opportunity to finish off Evangelou during the closing stages of round seven when he twice decked the Enfield man with body shots.

But that hardly mattered as Connor, who improves his record to 8 wins in 14 outings, scored another scalp over his cross-London rival and now looks forward to bigger challenges: "I won the fight pretty clearly the first time we fought but I had to do a better job of it," he said.

"Evangelou really and truly hasn't progressed at all, if anything I think he's gone backwards, maybe he should come up and train at our gym."

"I'm the champ around our area, we've got good fighters around our area - Tom Owen, Lee Owen, Lenny Daws, Ricky Boylan, Tom Williams, Craig Whyatt -  so our area is breeding success, we've got so many good fighters around our area but it's nice to be at the moment on top of all of them.

"I'll fight anyone for the British title but I'm a little bit below that at the moment, maybe Curtis Woodhouse or Shayne Singleton for the English title then I'll move on and fight whoever's at British level."

And Connor, who will be appearing in Prizefighter light-welterweight III tournament later in the year probably at York Hall, Bethnal Green, added: "I was glad to get the win and put Hackbridge firmly back on the map."