IT wasn't quite the world championships but for Neil Pickup, winning on his own turf was just as important.

The dethroned World and European champion admitted to feeling nervous as the Pro-Grip professional armwrestling series rolled in to town.

The Blackburn puller, nicknamed 'UK Natural' was defending an unbeaten record in the series that included wins in Preston, Birmingham, Leicester and the Trafford Centre in Manchester.

But the pressure was really on when he took on Slough's former British power lifting champion Sylvan Carty in King William Square.

After wrapping up a convincing 3-0 win on his right arm, Pickup was made to work for his victory on his left, coming from 2-0 down to win 3-2.

"I never really suffer from nerves in the big competitions but I did when I was competing in front of people in my home town.

"I rarely get the chance to compete in Blackburn so it was nice to be able to show people what I could do. Sylvan is a strong man, especially on his left, and it was a real tear-up. So I was relieved to win. If I had lost, then I would never had lived it down!"

Pickup has now won all five events in the series which puts him in confident mood going in to next month's European Championships in Frankfurt.

However, it was a mixed bag of results for a number of other local wrestlers competing on home soil.

Blackburn's Tony Leigh, the reigning UK bantamweight champion, came up against the tough Russian Alex Kaznachayev.

Leigh was giving away 7kg in the welterweight clash and it proved to be too much as the Russian won 2-1.

But 'Cold' Ian Stones of Great Harwood was in formidable form in his welterweight clash against Warren Bowler, running out a convincing 3-0 winner. Darwen's in-form Andy Barker lost his mighty light middleweight East Lancs battle against Rawtenstall's Stuart Hall -- and picked up an injury that will keep him out of the European Championships.

"The pair had a real tussle and Andy did really well to come back from 2-0 before Stuart won the decider to win 3-2," said Pickup. "But Andy picked up a tendon injury that will keep him out of the European Championships."

Tony Kiss of Blackburn enjoyed a good day in front of his home crowd when the British number two in the 85kg category beat Dean Inger from Derbyshire.

Kiss, nicknamed the Reaper, overpowered Inger in their middleweight showdown winning all three of his pulls.

Middleweight Austin Clarke, also of Blackburn, lost his cross weight clash against heavyweight Peter White. And another Blackburn puller, Michael Holland took his record to four wins out of five in the series when he beat Rawtenstall's Nick Hall 3-0.

Pickup was thrilled by the turnout and said the event will be returning again next year. He thanked Ann Ellwood, Steve Lee and Andy Grimshaw from Blackburn with Darwen Council's events officer for backing the series and town centre manager Arnold Wilcox.

He added: "It was great to see so many people turn out to cheer us all on. We couldn't have done it without the help of the local council and town centre manager. Now we are looking forward to returning to Blackburn next year with another fantastic fight card."