BOXING: Everyone but the boxer realised that when Dr Margaret Goodman stepped into Wayne McCullough's corner after the 10th round of his world title fight against Oscar Larios in Las Vegas early Sunday morning, she was acting for his own good.

Not for the first time in his career did super-bantamweight McCullough put bravery and toughness before his health as the 28-year-old Larios rocked him with a succession of heavy blows in the seventh, eighth and ninth rounds of this WBC title challenge.

By the end, McCullough had convinced once again that his legendary chin was as tough as ever. But at 35, what had he to prove?

As Goodman stepped in to stop the fight, McCullough emotionally argued for it to continue. "Two rounds to go. Two rounds to go," he pleaded in the vain hope of keeping alive his record of never having been stopped.

"I'm sorry, Wayne," answered Goodman with an apologetic shake of her head. "No."

Already his trainer, Freddie Roche, had been calmly telling his fighter he was being hit too often. In the eighth round, when McCullough came to the corner reeling from a Larios barrage, Roche warned him for the second time. "Wayne, you're taking too many shots," said his corner man. "You're taking too many shots."

In the seventh, Larios had caught him on the side of the head with two powerful rights, and while McCullough taunted him that he was still standing, the punches had hurt. But typically, McCullough shrugged it off. "I'm okay," the fighter told Roche.

At that stage McCullough had lost the fight and nothing other than an unlikely KO would have toppled the taller and heavier South American champion, who like McCullough was at home landing as many punches as possible.

When they first met, last February, when Larios won on a split decision, over 3,000 blows were thrown between the two.

McCullough keeps his ratio up to around 150 a round, but, sadly at the MGM Grand this time, few of his were troubling Larios despite an early cut to the eye in the second round.

While the WBC champion provided McCullough with his sixth world title fight, the question must again be asked if the Irishman needs to continue. His fight against WBO champion Scott Harrison was also a brutally physical challenge, which ended with McCullough taking a precautionary visit to a Glasgow hospital.

There is little doubt McCullough could have survived the final two rounds and might have even scored a few points in what would have been an understandable but unnecessary display of bravado. But it is just over 10 years since he travelled to Nagoya, Japan, to upset the odds by beating favourite Yasuei Yakushiji and become WBC bantamweight champion of the world. Last week he turned 35.

Two nights ago he was stopped for the first time and McCullough knows that the lightweight divisions are bursting with tough South American fighters every bit as durable and punishing as 28-year-old Larios.