Butterbean's big blow leaves backers reeling

It was Butterbean's night but before he entered the ring at the Wembley Conference Centre on Saturday his British promoters were calculating the cost of overestimating the willingness of fight fans to pay money to watch the American bruiser in action.

Butterbean won with one enormous swipe that left Doncaster's Shane Woollas out cold on his feet for a second before he crashed headfirst without any feeling to the canvas after two minutes and 38 seconds of the opening round. It was a shocking end because it was the first punch Butterbean landed.

At ringside there was a dreadful look of resignation on the face of Jon Feld, the promoter, who anxiously paced the stage all night long peering out at the depressing and surprising sight of empty seats. Even the dimmed lights at the top of the hall could not disguise the lack of interest in Butterbean.

"I honestly thought Butterbean would sell," admitted Feld. "The initial response was right and then it slowed down and nobody could work out why. We still have no idea why there was an empty seat. We just can't explain it." It is thought that Feld and his partners lost over £25,000 on the show, which is roughly what they paid Butterbean for his services.

Butterbean promised a second-round win but Woollas reduced the prediction by halting his cautious retreat long enough to connect with a left, which bounced loudly off the American's shaved head. It was evidently painful enough to stir Butterbean from his unusually casual approach and he moved forward, stepped to the right, set his feet and threw his right.

Woollas was out and the fight was over the moment it connected. "I've heard all the stuff about me being a freak, a fat freak but when I get to a fighter I hurt them," insisted Butterbean. "I have improved over the years and now I know a lot of fighters refuse to meet me because they know just how effective I can be."

It was not a night for the purists but even the most reluctant eyewitness must have been impressed with Butterbean's speed and, for a man of 25st 13lb, his agility, even in a brief fight that ended with the first punch. "He can't half whack," commented Woollas who was paid nearly £3,000 and in the past has survived the opening round in two fights against the British heavyweight champion Danny Williams before losing in round two.

So Butterbean is unlikely to appear in a British ring ever again and will continue his tour of boxing's outposts in America looking for win number 64.

There will be more high-profile cameo roles on undercards in Las Vegas and he will win another version of the world super-heavyweight four round championship. The 1,300 who bought tickets for Saturday's fun will miss him.

When Jane Couch became the first British female professional boxer in 1998 it looked like the sport would take off, but nearly three years later the anticipated boom has not yet come. Instead, it is a sport moving towards a crisis because there are simply not enough women leaving the amateur ranks and turning professional.

On the Butterbean undercard Couch beat Ukraine's Viktoria Oleynik and London's only professional woman boxer, Cathy Brown, stopped the Romanian Ramona Gughie in a mismatch. The fight would not have lasted one minute if both had been men because Brown was so superior and referees are far more assertive when dealing with men. Gughie, 21, had apparently won four and lost four before entering the ring but she looked clueless as Brown beat her up.

The Brown and Gughie fight was horrible to watch and mismatches like this, which are admittedly hard to avoid, will add to the growing calls for the women's side of the sport to be ignored.