Now Kiko Martinez has the fists that blew a hole in the career of Bernard Dunne trained on Wayne McCullough on December 1 at the King's Hall.

Speaking exclusively to the Belfast Telegraph, the European super-bantamweight champion made it clear that McCullough will be going the same way as Dunne.

The Dubliner had entered the Point arena in August unbeaten and riding the crest of a wave towards a world title bout but Martinez had other ideas and didn't waste any time in derailing the Dunne bandwagon. Just 86 seconds to be precise.

While Martinez expects McCullough to offer more resistance than Dunne, who had no answer to the high intensity of the 21-year-old, the man who calls himself La Sensación believes it is going to an early night.

"I will be the first man to knockout McCullough," said Martinez, who chalked up his 17th straight victory against Dunne - having won all 40 of his amateur contests.

"I have to adapt to McCullough because he's been a very good champion, I give him respect but I expect to stop him.

" He may be 37 and not boxed for two years but he's been a better fighter than Dunne.

"I'm really looking forward to going to Belfast to box because I love the Irish public. They are great boxing fans and I want to put on a good show for them.

"Fighting away from home is what I like very much.

"I get a real buzz from the fact that the crowd are against me. I prefer fighting away from Spain."

Martinez, promoted by Team Magee and Dennis Hobson, is already being tipped for a world title shot in 2008, though a mandatory European title defence must be handled, assuming that he overcomes former WBC bantamweight champion McCullough.

Currently Esham Pickering is the number one challenger but promoter Pat Magee expects that to change since the Sheffield man suffered a poor defeat at the hands of the ordinary Sean Hughes last weekend.

Magee said: "We had planned that if Kiko defeats McCullough that he would then box Pickering but I can't see how he can stay at number one because he looked terrible in the defeat to Hughes.

"But you know Kiko isn't taking Wayne McCullough for granted. He's just very confident that he can knock everybody out and why not after what he did to Dunne.

" But I believe that McCullough will show us just where he is in the world stage because Wayne is a match for anyone in the top ten.

"Wayne certainly won't go down the way Bernard Dunne did and I think it's got the makings of a great fight."

Apart from his victory over Dunne, Martinez is relatively inexperienced at the top level and that is where McCullough will no doubt feel he has the chance to cause an upset.

But 14 knockouts in his 17 victories seems to compound the reason why he is favourite when the two come head to head.

Though McCullough said: " I had 17 wins and I was world champion and had 13 knockouts but did that make me a big puncher?

"I know that it didn't so you can't just go with his record."

Meanwhile, Bernard Hopkins has taunted Joe Calzaghe by claiming he would beat the super-middleweight king "easily" .

The American great, who turns 43 in January, reiterated that for a super-fight between the pair to go ahead, Calzaghe would have to come to the United States.

"Calzaghe is cute, but he ain't going to be cute after this facelift," said Hopkins.

"If he steps out of his back yard, he will be handed his first defeat. I will beat Joe Calzaghe easily."

He added: "If you don't want your countryman to get his ass whupped, then don't let him come over here.

"I love to fight southpaws. I've had 11 wins and no defeats with eight knockouts against southpaws."



Don't miss the Belfast Telegraph next week when we give away ringside and outer ringside tickets for Wayne McCullough's big clash with European champion Kiko Martinez.