A chastened Roman Greenberg is looking to restore his reputation after the first professional defeat of his 28-fight career.

Greenberg was pummelled to a second round stoppage by veteran Cedric Boswell in an IBF North American heavyweight title bout in Atlanta, Georgia, last Friday.

A devastating right put the UK-based Israeli in trouble and the referee stepped in after Boswell, 39, unleashed some ferocious punches.

Back in London, Greenberg said he was fine physically but would have to deal with the mental scars. "I had a bad night and got caught. That's heavyweight boxing.

"But it's too early for me to start going through what happened.

Everyone in my team has been very supportive."

Certainly, the Greenberg camp was searching for the positives, with promoter Robert Waterman suggesting that the reverse "could be the making of Roman. It's his chance to prove his critics wrong.
"Maybe he was over-confident and he took a punch that he should not have got caught with.

"But the ref stopped the contest before any real damage was done and you have to give Boswell credit as he was in the best form of his life." Although acknowledging that the defeat was "disastrous" in the short-term, Waterman pointed out that at 26, Greenberg has time on his side - and had come back stronger after losses during his amateur career. "We have to rebuild his confidence and I would expect him to have at least two more fights before the end of the year.

"And the defeat will make it easier to find opponents because people in the industry will be saying that he does not know how to take a shot."

One option under consideration is for Greenberg to fight at a London charity show in November.