BOXING history will be made in Dublin at The Point on August 31st when, for the first time in the Republic, there will be two world title fights on the same bill.

As declared last week, Prince Naseem Hamed will head the show with his defence of the WBO featherweight title against Mexico's former IBF and WBC champion Manuel Medina.

Now, promoter Frank Warren has also announced that Tom Johnson, the American who took the IBF portion of the championship from Medina in February 1993, will also put his crown on the line in the Dublin promotion.

The addition of Johnson to the bill offers Hamed the opportunity to get a first hand look at the man who, according to Warren, is being pencilled in as his next opponent after Medina.

"Naz has always said that his dream is to unify the various titles - and, if all goes according to plan, the winners of these two title fights will meet each other some time in the autumn in a unification bout," said Warren.

An opponent has yet to be named for Johnson, a 32 year old native of Evansville, Indiana, who has a record of 43 wins and one draw from a 46 light professional career that includes 10 successful title defences.

The double header, on a night on which Michael Carruth will also be involved in a welterweight contest against Kevin Lueshing from London, will mark the second occasion this year that Hamed and Johnson have defended their titles on the same card.

They previously performed their double act at the Newcastle Arena in March, when Hamed stopped Said Lawal after just 35 seconds and Johnson halted Ever Beleno in the 12th and final round.

The only previous instance of two world title fights on the same show in Ireland happened at the King's Hall in Belfast in May 1994.

On that occasion Chris Eubank retained his WBO super middleweight crown with a controversial points win over Ray Close, while Argentina's Julio Cesar Vasquez survived two knock downs to keep his WBA light middleweight title with a 10 round stoppage of Russian challenger Ahmet Douatev.