WARRINGTON fighters caught the eye when representing England and their club in an event overseas.

Ste Watts and Tommy Anderson, based with Warrior Muay Thai in Latchford village, won their debut international Thai boxing contests with first-round knockouts in front of more than 600 fans and an online streamed audience too.

Stockton Heath’s Watts, 37, and Latchford’s Anderson, 17, won over the partisan crowd in a K1 Championship hosted in Horsens, Denmark.

“I was pleased with my performance,” said Watts, the EMEA lead cyber threat intelligence analyst for Bank of America.

“Denmark was our first international fight for the club so we both wanted to come back with a win.

“My spinning back-kick knockout was deemed knockout of the night and I was asked to sign my first autograph for a young Danish lad on the way out of the changing rooms which was surreal.

“My opponent made it hard for me to find my rhythm as he was throwing heavy shots but I settled and pulled off the move we had been practising to win the fight.”

Boos initially came for the only UK fighters in attendance but by the end the Danish crowd were cheering.

“I didn’t think that I would get a knockout and expected it to go the distance,” said Anderson, a Priestley College student who works at Tom’s Wine Bar in Stockton Heath and is also a part-time model.

“I certainly didn’t expect it to be in the first round so that was a massive surprise and was a great feeling too.

“I was pleased with my performance but there’s always room for improvement. My opponent rushed in, possibly from nerves, but I kept calm and used that to my advantage to win the fight.”

They are both under the tutelage of head coach and joint owner of WMT, Daz Collins – a fourth-dan black belt who has won numerous titles.

Their other trainer and corner man is Gaz Harding.

Watts now has a fight record of three wins, one of them as a professional, and no losses.

His background in Muay Thai, in which he is a brown belt, goes back seven years and he has been fighting for just over 12 months.

Anderson has two wins and two losses under his belt and has been training at the club in Muay Thai for 11 months.

Watts is originally from Widnes, where he attended Fairfield High School, and previously trained at the Master Sken Academy, while former Lymm High School pupil Anderson has training history in boxing with Warrington’s Hook and Jab club.

Anderson is scheduled to be in action on the Fight Stars show in St Helens on Saturday, July 1, while Watts is currently seeking his next opponent.