Boxing Round-up: It could probably not have gone better to plan for Bernard Dunne as he landed his first real title, the International Boxing Council's (IBC) version of the super bantamweight belt, with a second-round stoppage of Sean 'Short Fuse' Hughes.
That Hughes was a late step-in opponent, and not in the same league as the Dubliner, will not deter Dunne and his promoter Brian Peters from forging ahead towards boxing's holy grail, one of the well respected world titles.
Former world champion Barry McGuigan is one of a number of experts who believe Dunne has the talent to do just that and in the press conference after the five minutes or so of fighting at the National Stadium, Peters was talking of South American boxers coming into the equation.
If the IBC world title was a step up, the prospect of some of the most durable fighters in the game coming into Dunne's world will again up the ante in his pursuit of world domination.
"Hopefully we'll get another fight in before Christmas, " said Peters. "I'll be looking over in the USA. Possibly for former world champions. Hopefully we will be stepping it up."
For Dunne's first excursion into the weight division below his normal featherweight and his first into a 12-round bout, the night could not have ended more positively. From the off he had his opponent backing off and by the end of the first round was already finding his range and breaking the English regional champion's defence.
At the start of the second, Dunne stepped up the tempo and when Hughes was sent spinning around the ring with the 24-year-old hitting at will, the referee rightly stepped in. Had it gone on much further, Dunne would have knocked him out in what would have been a pointless demonstration of dominance.
"The plan went perfectly," he said afterwards. "It hasn't hit me yet (world title). The plan was to go out and relax. Keep calm and control the boxing. The late change of opponent didn't make a difference although Sean was taller and hungrier. But we'd trained hard and I felt strong."
The other world title fight also went with home fighter Jim Rock, who beat Wales Alan Jones with a points decision. Rock was undecided afterwards whether this was to be his last fight.
