Furness on fire to seal European title victory

Furness, who fights out of the AVT fight team based in Birstall, topped the bill at the Combat Sports FC event in front of 1,500 fans at a sold out Doncaster Dome.

Furness fought in Poland and Brazil last year and his European title shot was his first but in the UK since 2013, when he came up against Frenchman Yves Landu.

His opponent is a French kickboxing and grappling champion so Furness was expecting a tough fight and so it proved, going the distance before the Mirfield man took the decision on points.

Furness said: “It was great to be fighting in front of a local crowd again and taking the title topped off an amazing night for the AVT team, who moved to 13-0 overall in professional and amateur mixed martial arts bouts, K-1 kickboxing and boxing.”

Birstall’s Simon Stadnicki made his debut in the professional ranks in Doncaster and recorded a first round knock-out victory.

Adam Bramhald, fighting in front of his home crowd in Doncaster, and Leeds fighter Harris Neofytou were the other successful professional fighters from AVT on the night, with TKO and decision wins respectively.

There were wins for other fighters from AVT in the amateur ranks, including Adam Jones (Wakefield) via decision and Dan Tempest (Pontefract) via TKO.

AVT have bases in Birstall and Doncaster and among their other successful fighters were Jack Holt, Jake Bingham, Onur Caglar, Rico Franco and Mark Fletcher.

The team is one of the most highly regarded and successful in the UK under head coach and UFC veteran Danny Mitchell.

AVT are based at MP Fit in Birstall and are open to all levels for martial arts, combat sports and fitness, also catering for adults and teens in Jiu Jitsu and Muay Thai.

From the competitive BJJ team, at VS Grappling, AVT gained further success with Andrew Morris (gold), Ad Russ (gold), Rob Brook (silver) and Chris Beverley (silver) scooping honours.