Dave Allen was soundly beaten over 12 punishing rounds by hard-hitting puncher Arslanbek Makhmudov in Saturday night's Sheffield main event and the scorecards said all you needed to know.

Bob Williams' 115-111 card was closest, while Jean-Robert Laine (116-110) and Pawel Kardyni (117-109) were wider for a resurgent Russian-born Canada native back among the top-level heavyweight mix again.

Makhmudov (21-2, 19 KOs) made clear his desire to face two-time unified world champion Anthony Joshua next, a fight Allen hopes he gets but like many, is unsure how he'd fare against one of the sport's leading stars - even after a year-long spell of inactivity and injury recovery following a damaging fifth-round stoppage loss by Daniel Dubois last September.

During a 10-minute review posted to his YouTube channel hours post-fight, Allen (24-8-2, 19 KOs) admitted to pre-fight nerves but believes they were largely down to apprehension over whether Makhmudov would knock him out in a round or two.

"I was quite happy with the first round, got through it, my biggest worry was that I would get banged out in a round or two. He's a very powerful man, I've never been hit as hard as that, he was punching through the gloves, thought he'd knock my teeth out at one point," he said when breaking down his thoughts and feelings as the rounds progressed.

"I was happy with rounds two to four, 4-0 down but genuinely thought I could win the last seven rounds, thought he was tiring and starting to push him back. The problem was, his power wasn't diminishing. He was blowing and holding but every punch was the same."

Allen had his best round in the fifth and thought the tide would turn, but was being tagged far too often and the sequence repeated itself as his low output was being capitalised upon.

"In round seven or eight, he caught me to the top of my head and it was spinning. It felt like we had hold of each other and were doing really fast circles. He hurt me maybe six or seven times, badly twice, has a lot of experience and every time he hit me, just nudged me back with the one-two."

Despite fleeting success behind an overhand right in the ninth round, it's no wonder Allen's head trainer Jamie Moore thought to pull his brave charge out with two rounds to go.

"I was knackered. I was fit, no matter what anyone says, couldn't have done any more over the last 11 weeks, but the punches I was getting hit with took it [energy] out of me, my legs were gone. Jamie wanted to pull me but done that with [Frazer] Clarke, [David] Price, I wasn't doing it again, too many people in that arena had come and paid for tickets. I thought 'I'll get to the end of this and keep swinging - when it's safe.'"