COLNE’S Shayne Singleton says he has learned a valuable lesson from his first professional defeat to Sam Eggington – after being knocked down for the first time in his life.

Singleton lost his WBC international silver welterweight title after being stopped by Eggington in the fifth round.

The 25-year-old admits he was shocked to be knocked down three times at the Hull Ice Arena and has vowed to bounce back from his loss and never repeat the same mistake again.

“I’d never been down in my life, not even touched down or with a knee, and that’s in all my amateur fights, 20 professional fights and thousands of rounds of sparring,” Singleton said.

“I won the first round and I took a couple of his shots so I thought he couldn’t knock me down or knock me out.

“We came up with a gameplan before the fight to box, but in the second round I started to mix it up when I should have stuck to my boxing.

“I thought I could mix it up but he caught me with a power shot.

“It was my mistake. It’s a learning curve for me.

“I didn’t think I was invincible by any stretch but I didn’t really think that could happen, especially not against him.”

Singleton recovered from the first knockdown to stabilise the fight, but the referee stopped the bout in the fifth round after he went down twice more and his trainer Karl Ince waved the towel.

“Each time as soon as I went down I was ready to get up and I was fine,” he said.

“But my cornerman waved the towel and that’s why the referee stopped it.

“I wasn’t very happy about that at the time because I wanted to fight on until I couldn’t fight any more.

“But it shows that he cares too. He has a job to do and he said I could live to fight another day.”

Singleton, who won the English title in 2013 before moving up to welterweight, believes he can recover from the defeat and set up another title fight in the future.

“I fractured my middle knuckle in the first round, I did both of my hands in the first round but the right is worse, so the doctor has told me to take some time off,” he said.

“But hopefully I’ll be back in the gym in four weeks.

“My manager says one or two more fights and we can go again and go for a title again, maybe a British or a Commonwealth.

“I want to fight Sam Eggington again and put it right.”