O’Doherty kept his composure in rain-soaked conditions at the Eco-Power Stadium, winning via scores of 119-109 and 118-110 twice to retain his belt and pick up the Commonwealth title too.

The pair met in the only title fight on this Queensberry bill, topped by Dave Allen’s heavyweight clash with Filip Hrgovic live on DAZN. It had been tipped as a potential fight of the night, but O’Doherty’s victory was never really in doubt.

After incessant rain throughout the afternoon and into the early evening in Doncaster, the wet ring canvas was an early problem for Hatim, who was vying to become the first Sudan-born British champion. The challenger lost his footing twice inside the first minute due to the greasy surface which did not help his attempts to find an early rhythm.

Former gymnast O’Doherty did not seem to be having the same problems and was able to measure his long shots, although few landed with any authority through the first two.

That changed early in the third round as O’Doherty touched down due to a slip on the canvas as the rain continued to fall and the fans, in waterproof ponchos, filed into the stadium, which normally houses Doncaster Rovers Football Club. But as the round wore on, the pair both decided to turn up the heat. There was more of the same in the fourth but O’Doherty was having the better of the exchanges.

In the break before the fifth, Hatim’s trainer Xavier Miller implored him to target O’Doherty’s body more but the champion was not giving him any opportunity to get close enough to do so. Hatim did land with a looping right hand in a round which the champion otherwise did enough to win.

All the rounds throughout this entertaining encounter were competitive but O’Doherty always looked in control despite the unorthodox, awkward work of his taller opponent. And, with just three stoppages each before this fight, it always seemed like they would go the distance here.

Then, in the eighth, O’Doherty began to turn the screw and landed with a steady stream of hard right hands and left hooks with Hatim hanging on. But hang he did and ended the round by sinking in a couple of body shots.

But by the 10th, Hatim was running out of ideas quickly as O’Doherty continued to build up his lead on the cards. The challenger looked tired as he walked back to his corner on unsteady legs once the bell to end the round sounded. The 11th was another tough one for Hatim, who was powerless to stop the champion unloading a length combination to end the round.

A week ago, Hatim’s fellow Dale Youth graduate Zak Chelli pulled out a last-gasp knockout while he was trailing on the cards but there would be no repeat here for the west Londonder. Instead, O’Doherty capped a fine performance with another solid round.

Michael Gomez Jr. dropped and stopped Lee McGregor to make it two inside-distance wins out of two since moving to lightweight this year.

The 31-year-old from Manchester inexplicably headbutted McGregor when the Scotsman first entered the ring and was given a stern telling off by referee Michael Alexander.

Former European bantamweight champion McGregor was the visibly smaller man once the actual fight started. After a quiet opener, Gomez, who stopped Jordan Flynn inside three rounds just seven weeks ago, hurt McGregor with a sharp right hand in the second round and another early finish looked likely.

McGregor was equal to everything Gomez threw until the fourth, when he was dropped for the first time. However, he climbed to his feet and actually ended the round in the ascendancy after refusing to crumble.

But the knockdown was a sign of things to come as Gomez piled on the pressure throughout the fifth. The punishment continued into the sixth but McGregor always managed to fire back just in time to prevent the referee from stopping the fight. Instead, McGregor’s head coach Billy Nelson decided to throw the towel in at an official time of 2:37 of round six.

In the night’s first televised fight, highly rated Uzbek Asadkhuja Muydinkhujaev marked his Queensberry Promotions debut by outpointing late stand-in Alexis Nahuel Torres over six.

There are high hopes for Muydinkhujaev, 25, and the southpaw did not put a foot wrong as he won 60-54 on referee Howard Foster’s card.