Darren Barker may have seen his world-title dream shattered - but remained unbowed and relishing another crack at the big time. The Barnet middleweight was stopped in the eleventh round by world number one and WBC's Diamond world champion Sergio Martinez in Atlantic City last Saturday.

But the Brit was far from disgraced and rightly had his head held high when he joined Ringside to look back at his big moment.

"If anything I've gained experienced from it," he told Sky Sports. "I enjoyed the occasion, it was just a shame the result didn't go my way. But I gave it my best - I just came up short. I just really fancied the job. I know what a great champion he is and he proved it on the night, but like I say I fancied it and knew I could get it done. But unfortunately I didn't.

"The one thing I was happy about was that I didn't look like a complete nutcase by saying all that! At stages in the fight, it looked like there was a possibility I could win," he said.

"We thought we'd start off, suss him out and not make any stupid mistakes because we knew how hard he hit. Then just get into the fight and then start our boxing. If anything I wish I'd have thrown more punches a little bit later on in the fight - I think I was bit too predictable at times. But I'm not taking anything away from Sergio, he's a great fighter and he found a way to beat me."

"The problem was I got too comfortable taking them on the gloves and it slowed my workrate down. I should have thrown more punches because once you're playing catch-up with a fighter like Martinez, you're always going to struggle."