Rendall Munroe's next fight could be for the world championship after last night's thrilling win in Nottingham.

Promoter Frank Maloney believes the Leicester boxing binman's reward for outpointing Simone Maludrottu in his fifth defence of the European super-bantamweight title will be a crack at WBC champion Toshiaki Nishioka, from Japan.

Munroe took a unanimous points decision by scores of 116-112, 116-112 and 115-113 after 12 gruelling rounds of non-stop action at Harvey Hadden Sports Centre.

Maloney said: "Rendall will be the mandatory challenger now and, if we can get the fight over here, he will beat anybody."

Munroe had to dig deep to beat the Italian in the second half of the fight and admitted it took a few harsh words from trainer Jason Shinfield to drive him on to the best win of his career.

He said: "That was very tough. I was told before the fight that Maludrottu could match me for stamina, but I just had the edge in the end.

"Between rounds, Jason was telling that I had to work harder and that drove me on.

"I hard to work really hard in there and I want to thank my supporters for helping me through the fight."