Boxing: Belfast rejoices as McCullough wins with ease

The last preliminary fight of Wayne McCullough's career ended in the fourth round at the Maysfield Leisure Centre in Belfast on Saturday night and now he has a few weeks in which to determine how that career will end.

As expected, the reception for the Belfast-born boxer in his first fight in his home town for over seven years was emotional but the local fans understand boxing and they realised long before the first bell that Russia's Nikolai Eremeev was selected to make their fighter look good. When the fight was stopped with just eight seconds remaining in round four, the crowd generously applauded Eremeev and left knowing that the next time they see McCullough he will be in a real fight.

The 32-year-old now has to make a decision that will effect the rest of his life and select the most suitable and lucrative world title fight that his promoter Frank Warren can secure for him. There appears to be two likely options and both would be extremely difficult fights for him to win. A veteran of 10 years in Las Vegas gyms and several vicious fights, McCullough is simply not the boxer he was six or seven years ago.

The obvious fight is against Glasgow's recently-crowned World Boxing Organisation featherweight champion, Scott Harrison. However, in the hours after the fight it was clear that the leading contender is a move back to super-bantamweight and a fight against Panama's WBO champion at that weight, Juan Guzman. McCullough was just two pounds over the super-bantamweight limit for Saturday's bout and he claimed to have eaten a full cooked breakfast in the hours before the weigh-in.

Guzman would travel and fight in Belfast but Harrison will not and that seems to be the most important factor because taking McCullough away from his home town would be a dumb move. In Belfast, presumably at the recently-built Odyssey Arena, McCullough would sell-out and a crowd of nearly 10,000 cheering him on would create a daunting backdrop for any visiting fighter.

Warren will be calculating the risks in letting McCullough fight Guzman, who is unbeaten but untested in 18 bouts, and the financial and professional benefits in pushing directly for a fight against Harrison, which is the type of fight that would grace any decade in British boxing history.

The obvious sequence is for McCullough to beat Guzman, make a defence in Belfast and then surrender home advantage for a showdown next summer outdoor in Scotland against Harrison. This would also allow Harrison, who won the title two weeks ago in front of 5,000, to increase his popularity. However, if either Harrison or McCullough lose before sharing a ring, Warren will regret not pushing them together sooner and for good reason.

The nominal main event on Saturday night was almost ignored because of the clamour involving McCullough's homecoming but Belfast's Neil Sinclair retained his British welterweight title when he stopped Paul Knights in round two. Sinclair was cut in the first but was simply too powerful for Knights and after one brief knock-down it was waved off.