PROFESSIONAL BOXING: The baby, she'll be four in March, didn't want to watch Daddy box. She had been to other fights, but she didn't want to see Daddy meet the bad man. Cheryl McCullough, who is not only Wynona's mother but Wayne's wife and manager, bribed the little girl with popcorn and a soft drink, and was rewarded with cries of, "Mommy, Daddy won, he knocked the bad man down".

Now Wayne McCullough wants to knock out the British Board of Boxing Control (BBBC) and its director, Simon Block, for banning him in Britain. Maybe a blow to the brain could kill him, as McCullough was told more than two years ago, but not on Saturday night, not at the Cox Pavilion on the University of Nevada Las Vegas campus.

McCullough, fighting for the first time in nearly 27 months, managed to take a few pretty good right hands from Alvin Brown, the self-advertised "Slick Nick the Quickster", before knocking the bad man out at 2:47 of the second round of a scheduled 10.

"It was like old times," said Cheryl McCullough, who had suffered watching her husband box almost every day in the gym of their home here, shackled by the British board's ban. "It all came flooding back. This is where he belongs."

The 1992 Olympic silver medallist and former World Boxing Council bantamweight champion returned to the ring here; he still wants to return to the ring in his native Belfast.

He was prevented from being in the ring, however, when the British board, examining brain pictures before McCullough's attempted return to Belfast on October 20th, 2000, decided two days before the scheduled bout that one more punch to the brain could kill him. He heard that; naturally, he retired.

But subsequent examinations in Britain, Ireland, Nevada and UCLA said the blip was probably just a polyp that McCullough had been born with and should not prevent him from the job he loves.

"It still makes me so mad, talking about the British board," said McCullough after his impressive return.

He said the BBBC would see how well he was because "the BBC was here, filming it, and they'll show highlights in Britain".

McCullough noted that even after taking some pretty good right hands from Slick Nick, "I got hit in he head and I'm still standing, I'm still talking, I'm not dead."

He said a pretty good right hand by Brown late in the first round "gave me a bit of a buzz and the crowd went 'woo'." He said it also "woke me up". "It was too good to be true in the first round," said McCullough. "I thought, it can't be this easy, not after two years off."

He said he was "sharper than I thought I'd be, my condition felt good".

It was the first time he had fought as a 30-year-old, in fact he's 31 now, but he was as spry as ever. Brown, who now has a 17-5 record (15-0 in Kansas City, Missouri, 2-5 in the rest of the world), said he was "really impressed" by how well McCullough took his punches: Naseem Hamed and Erik Morales couldn't put him down, though they beat him; in fact, McCullough has never been dropped, amateur or professional.

McCullough said he felt calm all day, "not nervous at all", but admitted to some flutters as he got up on the ring apron and looked into his old office. "I was wondering, was I really here? Am I really fighting tonight?"

There were a lot of empty seats, though the main event was between the man who beat McCullough in the 1992 Barcelona Games, Joel Casamayor of Cuba, and another undefeated junior lightweight champion, Acelino Freitas of Brazil (Freitas won a close and controversial 12-round decision). McCullough, facing a minor opponent, got a louder welcome than either champion.

"Believe it or not," said Cheryl McCullough, "I honestly didn't believe it was happening until he got in the ring, there have been so many fights that have fallen through. It felt so good seeing him in there again. That's where he's happy, and when he's happy, I'm happy."

McCullough said as he awaited the first bell for the first time since losing to Morales in 1999 that it was almost as if he were asleep. There, across the ring, was an opponent. McCullough punched his temples with both hands, then his chin with both hands, "to wake myself up". The bell rang, he moved forward, and the flutters disappeared. He slipped and ducked and pressed forward, attacking Brown's body.

McCullough, now a featherweight, had a reputation as a light puncher, but every blow that landed seemed to shake Brown. The Irishman got hit with several right hands: "I get lazy with my jab and leave it out," he acknowledged.

In the second round, a left hook to the head dropped Brown.

He was up at six, tried one more big right hand, but two body shots, the final a left hook to the side, dropped him again. There was no sense trying to get up.

McCullough was glad for the knockout, his first since stopping Johnny Bredahl in December, 1995, in Belfast.

Marco Antonio Barrera and Erik Morales are fighting each other again. So are Paulie Ayala and Clarence (Bones) Adams. McCullough said in the meantime he could have a few more "tune-ups" before stepping up the opposition.

By that time, Wynona probably won't have to be bribed to watch Daddy work.