It’s a bloody epic as Griffiths keeps belt!

Griffiths and Dillingham battle it out. Pic: Manjit Narotra/BCB Promotions

RYAN Griffiths is still Midlands featherweight champion after a blood-splattered epic with Jack Dillingham. But only just.

After 10 thrilling, see-saw rounds on BCB’s title double-header at Aldersley Stadium, Wolverhampton, referee Kevin Parker couldn’t separate the pair, scoring a 95-95 draw.

Both thought they’d done enough. Both bled for the title, with Dudley’s Griffiths badly gashed over the left eye and Dillingham, from Heanor, Derbyshire, leaking blood from a damaged nose.

For Griffiths, making his first defence of the belt after taking the title in a barnstormer with Lewis Morris, Saturday night was another fight of the year contender. It will take a sensational scrap to beat it.

The 24-year-old, who has lost only one of 10 contests, said: “Jack Dillingham was everything I expected and more. I knew he would come out strong in the first three rounds, then I’d take over.

“I thought I won it by one or two rounds, but the inexperience of having to deal with my first proper cut showed.”

Dillingham, who had won six on the spin going into the fight, began like a steam train, firing sharp jabs and planting rights to the body.

The 22-year-old set a fast pace, and the tempo didn’t waver in the gruelling rounds that followed. By the third, the champ was starting to impose himself with hooks to head and body but could never subdue the brave challenger.

Dillingham bled from the nose in the seventh and victory seemed to be slipping from his grasp. The tables turned dramatically in the ninth as blood streamed down Ryan’s face, the sight spurring Dillingham into an all-out assault.

Jack slammed punches to Griffiths’ body, was lectured for careless headwork and unleashed right hands in the last. Ryan, dabbing at the open wound, rode the storm and kept his status as a champ.

Both scaled 8st 13lbs.