By Luke Cawdell

Gillingham heavyweight Tom Dallas returns to the ring on Friday night against Bulgarian Yavor Marinchev.

Dallas (pictured) was hoping to be paired with Carl Baker but, for the second time in two months, the 6ft 4in southpaw pulled out.

Dallas will be fighting on a busy card at Brentwood Leisure Centre and St Mary’s trainer Andy Kidd is pleased his boxer is finally getting an opponent who can test him.

Twenty-four year-old Dallas has won all eight of his fights, with his last six being knockouts, and Kidd said: "We wanted to fight Carl Baker but he pulled out again and I don’t know why. I imagine we’ll give up on that now.

"We were looking for someone to take Tom the distance as the last fight was a waste of time."