A towel covering his head, Bobby Vanzie contemplated life from the privacy of his dressing-room bathroom.

The doctor had just finished applying eight stitches to the angry gash beneath his left eye.

"I'm bruised internally and externally," admitted the Bradford fighter,"I don't think I will be modelling for a few days."

The external scar will heal in time. But what about the demons inside after the biggest battering of his boxing career?

Thankfully from the solitude of his small room in the corner of the Preston Guildhall, you couldn't hear the din from the main arena.

Vanzie clearly wished he was miles away from that ring, the stage where he was dumped on the canvas five times before Micky Vann waved it off after eight one-sided rounds.

Opponent Yuri Romanov is going to be something special. He destroyed Steve Murray last year - as Vanzie

had done in an epic British title clash in May, 2001 - and at 20 has all the

makings of a world champion contender.

The same cannot now be said for Vanzie, at least not at lightweight. But deep down, he knew that in the middle of last week when he was trying everything to make the weight.

Vanzie took three days to lose the last pound to hit the 9st 9 limit. The effect of that struggle was there for all to see on Saturday night.

He said: "I was a hollow shell inside. There was nothing in my legs."

The power wasn't there, certainly to absorb the shots of his opponent.

The Russian was relentlessly accurate and showed he can take a punch. But there was no steel in Romanov's gloves.

It was just that Vanzie was too empty inside to show the natural resistance he would have expected.

"I tried boxing him but it wasn't working. I tried pushing him back but that didn't work. And when I went for the third option and tried brawling, he kept catching me.

"I caught him with so many uppercuts and expected his legs to wobble at least. But he never lost heart and everything I threw, he delivered straight afterwards."

If all had gone to plan, Vanzie would now be looking ahead to a summer shot at WBO world champion Artur Grigorian. But instead he faces a week of intensely hard soul-searching about where he goes next.

Vanzie believes that everything happens for a reason. This episode - coming on the heels of a nightmare 2002 - has surely put an end to his lightweight days.

While a British title defence against Jon Thaxton is still on the table, Vanzie must surely look upwards to a more comfortable light-welter.

That or retire. And even allowing for all the brickbats from the past 12 months, Vanzie is far too proud to let anyone accuse him of quitting.

"I've been down before and come back," he said, referring to the Murray win which earned him the British crown. His physical powers of

recuperation have never been questioned.

He will find out in the coming weeks whether he can recover just as strongly in his mind.