WHEN 220lb heavyweight Peter McNeeley learned he had been assigned a supporting role underneath Wayne McCullough's January title challenge to Daniel Zaragoza, he jokingly (we think) asked manager Vinnie Vecchione "can I fight McCullough?"

"No," Vecchione jokingly (we think) replied. "Wayne is too tough for you."

"I've always wanted to be a heavyweight," said McCullough. "I'm just six inches too short and 100lb too light."

McCullough, the 26-year-old Belfast-born, Las Vegas-based champion will officially abandon his World Boxing Council bantamweight title on January 11th, when he moves up in weight to go after the organisation's 122lb "super-bantamweight" championship at Boston's Hynes Convention Centre.

Already the highest-paid bantamweight in boxing history, McCullough figures to become even richer after this one.

McCullough-Zaragoza will be the Hynes Arena's first boxing show since a young Steve Collins was out-pointed by veteran Mike McCallum in his unsuccessful challenge for the WBA middleweight title six and a half years ago. It will also be Boston's first HBO card in 15 years - since Marvellous Marvin Hagler's 1981 title defence against Vito Antuofermo at the Boston Garden.

Along with his manager, Mat Tinley, promoters Dan Goossen and Al Valenti, and McCullough's former amateur trainer, Harry Robinson, the boxer spent the past two days making the rounds in Boston's Irish community in the hope of building a fan base for the January 11th show. (The last time McCullough fought in Boston, against Oscar Lopez in his fourth professional fight in 1993, there were only a couple of hundred witnesses).

"Nobody saw that fight," be said. "I hope there'll be a few thousand more for this one."

McCullough, now 20-0 as a professional won his present title by out-pointing Yakushiji in July of last year, has defended it twice since, but has made no secret of his arduous struggles to maintain the 118 lb limit. Along with Tinley and his 83-year-old trainer Eddie Futch, he has been eyeballing the grizzled Mexican veteran for some time. Tinley had even arranged a non-title match against a left-handed opponent this summer in anticipation of a fight against the southpaw Zaragoza. After the opponent fell out at the last minute, McCullough was left to struggle for 10 rounds against the orthodox-styled Julio Cardona - although, in the opinion of some, his bigger battle had been with the scale.

"We had to move him up in weight," said Tinley after McCullough's Dublin defence against Jose Bueno last March. "I wouldn't allow my boxer to fight the scales. Eddie Futch and (chief lieutenant) Thell Torrence are too wise not to see the signs, and Eddie said it was time for Wayne to move up.

Zaragoza will be 39 years of age (Tinley describes him as "ageless") by the time he steps into the ring against McCullough in January. He would seem to be at the end of the line, but then he's appeared that way before, only to stage a Lazarus-like revival. He won his first title, the same WBC bantam now held by McCullough, in 1984 (when Wayne was 14), and then promptly lost his next three fights. He had already won and lost world titles three times when he was brought back to test Hector Acero-Sanchez last summer. Zaragoza battled Acero-Sanchez to a draw, forcing a rematch, which he then won.

"I have the utmost respect for Daniel Zaragoza," said McCullough at yesterday's Boston press conference. "I've watched him for many years, and he's a crafty-hard-nosed veteran."

Respect aside, Tinley is already plotting a future course that assumes a second title for McCullough come January. HBO had been grooming McCullough for a showdown of unbeaten 122lb champions, hoping to match him against World Boxing Organisation champion Marco Antonio Barrera sometime next year.

That prospective dream match went up in smoke just last Friday, when Barrera was upset by New Yorker Junior Jones in Tampa. (A McCullough-Jones fight at Madison Square Garden now looms a possibility). And then there's always the fight down the line against you-know-who.

"The Prince (Naseem Hamed) is definitely the one I want somewhere down the road," said McCullough. "That fight would be huge in Europe, and we'd both make lots of money. But first I have to get by Zaragoza, and I know that won't be an easy fight. None of my fights are."