Wayne McCullough arrives in Belfast later today for the Christmas while negotiations continue on a rematch with Naseem Hamed for the WBO featherweight title.
Realistically that will only take place if McCullough manages to beat one or two challengers for Naseem's title before then.
Waiting for McCullough to make his move are WBC super bantamweight champion Eric Morales and WBC featherweight title-holder Luisoto Espinosa but McCullough will not be in action until February or March with dates and venues to be decided.
Naseem made so many enemies in the United States when he beat McCullough on points over 12 rounds in Atlantic City last month that he has been attempting to mend his fences ever since.
The big sponsors of that fight - Home Box Office television and Ballys, the casino and hotel operation, were both annoyed by Naseem's late arrival for the promotion of the fight which caused severe limitations on their promotional campaign and then by his arrogant behaviour at press conferences. His earlier "spat" with his mentor and trainer, Brendan Ingle, didn't help either. He even managed to infuriate British boxing reporters who normally remain loyal to "their man" in such circumstances and there were several verbal exchanges between the top British journalists with Naseem's brother Riath both before and after the fight.
Since his return to Britain there have been rumours that Naseem had "ditched" his promoter-manager, Frank Warren which was fed to the British press by his brother and later denied.
Naseem also hosted a lunch, apparently designed to appease the journalists he had offended and there have, since, been denials that there were problems in the relationships between Naseem on the one hand and Warren and Ingle on the other.
None of this has had any effect on McCullough. Yesterday his manager - wife Cheryl - said: "We believe that Wayne is entitled to a rematch because some of the scoring in Atlantic City was so bad - eight points in one case - but if we don't get that we will, certainly, earn it otherwise so that Wayne can get back a world title which he deserves."
China struggled to establish their expected superiority on the first day of serious Asian Games competition in Bangkok yesterday with their swimmers slowing down and their shooters off target.
That let Japan through to lead the medals table while the hosts Thailand were delighted to win two gold medals. Japan led the medal table with seven golds, against six for China and five for South Korea.
