LUKE Watkins made the perfect start to his professional boxing career at Wembley Arena tonight.

The 24-year-old Swindonian claimed a fourth round stoppage victory over David Vicena in the opening bout of the night of George Groves’ European super-middleweight title fight with Christopher Rebrasse.

Cruiserweight Watkins looked calm and control from the moment he walked into the arena and from the first bell, the Paddy Fiztpatrick-trained boxer established his jab well to keep his opponent at bay.

Vicena, who had been the distance with heavyweight Manuel Charr and Robert Helenius, was crude but he did at the beginning look like he had come to fight.

But the wild swings were easily side-stepped by Watkins who showed a good range of his arsenal.

The jab was a particularly effective weapon for Watkins as he went through the centre of Vicena’s guard.

And in the second round, the 35-year-old’s face was a bloody mess after Watkins had again found a way through the guard to break his nose.

Watkins remained calm and just before the referee put a halt to proceedings two minutes into the second round.

“I’m feeling good,” Watkins told the Advertiser after the fight. “Johnny Nelson (Sky pundit and former cruiserweight world champion) said something to me before the fight “He said the first time is when you are losing it (mentally) and I went through every piece of nerves, obviously it is my aim to control those and I think that I did and showed my boxing.

“I was the same way I am before every single fight, I get certain feeling, go through certain emotions and without those I know something wouldn’t be right, I felt them all I knew that I was going to be OK.”

Watkins added: “That is not my decision to make (whether the stoppage was premature or not), that’s the referee.

The ref felt that it deserved to be stopped and that is his decision. My job is to box, be professional in what I’m doing and it not my place to say whether it is right or wrong, I just do my job and that.”

Now that Watkins’ first fight is out of the way and the Swindonian came through the contest unscathed, the 24-year-old will now head to Germany to be on the undercard of the Arthur Abrahams-Paul Smith world title fight next weekend.

“Now number one is out of the way now we concentrate on number two,” he said “I’m already fit, now we treat at as we are going into another fight, taper off and be sharp, polish, polish, polish for the fight.”