Aarron Morgan believes he will benefit from being taken the distance in his successful International Masters light-middleweight title fight against Nodar Robakidze.

The former Islington BC captain completed eight rounds for the first time in his career as he overcame Robakidze to claim the vacant belt with a points decision at the Camden Centre, King’s Cross, on Saturday.

“I’m glad it went eight rounds – it’s the first time I’ve done eight and I trained hard to make sure I’d be able to go the distance,” Morgan told the Gazette.

“Now I know I can, so it’s another box I’ve ticked off. I thought I was on the verge of stopping him several times, but each time he came back and let me know he was there.

“He was a good opponent and all respect to him. He just came and gave it a good go – he obviously wanted to win the belt himself.

“At the moment I’m feeling over the moon and this is going to be the first of many for me. I’ll sit down with my team and see what’s next, then it’ll be back to work.”

The 27-year-old, who has now extended his professional record to seven wins from seven contests, was in control of every round and landed the harder punches.

Although the Georgian fighter counter-attacked gamely, he never looked likely to deny Morgan his first title since turning over 18 months ago and referee Jeff Hinds scored the fight 80-73 in the Londoner’s favour.

There was an impressive performance on the same bill from Morgan’s stablemate Chris Baugh, who stopped Hungarian opponent Zoltan Turai to clinch his fourth straight professional win.

The Highbury-based middleweight, who is trained by Bevis Allen, dropped his opponent with a left hook followed by a right in the opening round, and Turai did well to survive the count that followed.

But he had no answer to Baugh’s hand speed and a barrage of punches shook the Hungarian before the referee halted the contest 52 seconds into the fourth round.

Kentish Town welterweight Kian Thomas made a winning start to his career in the paid ranks, easing to victory on points in his four-round contest against Danny Donchev.

The former St Pancras ABC amateur made good use of a stiff left jab and came close to stopping Donchev in the final round, but referee Lee Cook awarded him the fight, 40-36.

The show also featured two other Islington boxers – middleweight Arthur Hermann and welterweight Freddy Kiwitt, both of whom train with John Tandy at his Angel gym.

Hermann was matched with Bulgarian Alexey Ribchev and sent his opponent crashing to the canvas with a combination of punches to the body and head in the first round.

It seemed unlikely that the fight would go the distance, but Ribchev recovered to see it through – although the Islington fighter took the win 60-54 on points.

And Kiwitt proved too powerful for Hungary’s Lubos Priehradnik, landing a flurry of blows to the head as referee Hinds stopped the contest after just two minutes 22 seconds of the first round.