The snake-bitten EBU light heavyweight championship finally has a new holder.

Brad Rea started well, endured a nervy middle and finished strong with the telling power punches during a grueling 12-round encounter to outpoint Shakan Pitters, sealing European honours Saturday night.

Rea edged Pitters by scores of 115-114, 115-114 and 115-113 at Connexin Live Arena in Hull, England, a fitting end to headline GBM Sports' latest card televised on DAZN worldwide.

Former heavyweight-turned-promoter Izzy Asif declared this the best fight he's promoted to date, while Rea revealed a willingness to run it back provided he got a Manchester homecoming.

Rea (20-1, 10 KOs), a longtime middleweight who began campaigning at 175 pounds last year, declared this was now his division after a tough start to 2025 saw promising opportunities repeatedly fall through.

Armed with a full training camp, he joked during fight week this wasn't going the full distance. He'd only gone 10 rounds once, in a losing effort to Tyler Denny for English honours in November 2022.

It certainly did go to the wire against a man eight years his senior in a fully fledged former British champion, though his youthful vigour served him well early to kickstart an intriguing clash of styles.

Rea often went downstairs early, as Pitters' high guard saw the Birmingham man's defences pierced far too easily for comfort. Unable to fully maximise his physical advantages, that merely emboldened Rea as his fans ringside roared him forward.

Encouraging flurries and the cleaner work was frequently scored by the 27-year-old, who finished round two landing a big right hand and combination before the bell. Pitters had just produced a decent spell at close range moments before, though he needed to stem the tide and quickly.

After a slower third, Rea's body attacks were ever-present in the fourth. Pitters (20-2, 7 KOs) walked him into a straight right hand, an infrequent bright spot during another round he comfortably lost.

He emerged purposefully in the fifth - almost as if he'd been read the riot act - and it was his best of the evening to that juncture, having dug to the body and tagging Rea upstairs in the pocket.

Rea froze him with stiff shots to finish a frantic stanza, but his output slowed and the tempo lessened, edging towards the second half of a duel where investing in body work paid dividends.

They traded hooks in the seventh, Pitters pitching another solid round with positive body language as he marched back to the corner. Rea, meanwhile, forced to work harder, had a bruise under his eye and didn't exude the same confidence, despite finishing rounds busy whenever possible.

Blood streamed down Rea's nose in the eighth, boxing most of the stanza without a gumshield as uppercuts were the big punch for both during a grueling exchange. They traded furiously in the ninth, Rea's power punching a key difference upon finding his second wind.

Curling hooks through the guard and getting off first in their exchanges, the Lancashire resident was channeling a similar all-action style to his close friend Conah Walker, who defended his British welterweight title with a seventh-round stoppage of Liam Taylor last weekend.

By the final frame, this fight still hung in the balance. Rea connected on a howitzer of a right hook with a minute left, unleashing haymakers as Pitters' legs were failing him, but still he fired back moving backwards. Ultimately the right man won and while an immediate rematch makes sense, Rea can relax after earning himself the luxury of options aplenty in a talent-rich division.