THE RESULT: Charlie Edwards lost a 12-round decision to South Africa’s Sikho Nqothole in London’s York Hall on Friday evening. The judges’ scores came in at 117-111 (Clifford Mbelu), 116-112 (Sylvain Leblanc) and 116-113 (Michael Alexander) all in favour of the visitor. John Latham refereed the IBF super-flyweight title eliminator.

KEY MOMENTS: Showing the greater punching power throughout, Sikho had Edwards wobbling in the third round and again in the seventh. Every time Edwards got back in to the fight or had pockets of success, Nqothole reasserted his authority. Edwards had a better 11^th but his success rate was fleeting once again.

RECORDS: Nqothole improves to 22-3 (13 KOs), while Edwards falls to 21-3 (7 KOs).

TALKING POINTS: While this is Nqothole’s moment, Edwards’ career is drifting away towards obscurity as his quest to become a two-time world champion hit a huge hurdle.

Edwards looked poor as he ran repeatedly in his last defeat, to Andrew Cain, and it was nifty promotional work to get him back in line for a winnable eliminator and a potentially winnable world title beyond it.

That will not happen. The South African winner was well worth his hand raised, live on DAZN. Back to Edwards, who has always been a tricky mover, but his defensive attitude has gone into overdrive lately.

Cagey, back foot boxing is fine. Skirting the perimeter of the ring, round after round won’t cut it. The 31-year-old victor, meanwhile, returns to the Eastern Cape to prepare for a world title shot. Fully deserved too.

QUOTABLE: “It wasn’t my night tonight,” Edwards said later, on social media, before thanking the fans for their support. “I’ve got to reassess a few things, brush myself down, have a little bit of time out with my family and my beautiful daughter.

“Then we’ll reassess, get back in the gym, and get back to work. You can’t keep a good man down. A few things need to be assessed. I need to look at certain things, but we’ll be back.

“Big respect to Sikho. Hell of a fighter, good fighter, tricky fighter. God bless you and your family, brother. Go on and win that world title. We’ll [Team Edwards] be back to live and fight another day.”

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT: Nqothole moves on to face the winner of Mexico’s Willibaldo Garcia Perez (reigning IBF belt holder) and Aussie Andrew Moloney who meet in Japan on June 6.

SUPPORTING CAST: Dan Toward and Jak Corrie boxed to a split draw in their closely contested 10-round WBA Continental super-welterweight title fight. Ollie Cooper stopped James Osbourne in the eighth of their 10-rounder for the vacant English super-middleweight crown.

Elsewhere, there were victories for Tom Welland, Lucas Roehrig, Sultan Babakhanov, Jonathan Kumuteo and Belfast’s Eugene McKeever.