Jim Rock from Dublin's inner city advanced his chances of a European title shot in the middleweight division when he outpointed Jimmy Vincent from Birmingham in a 10-round contest at the new Vicar Street venue in Dublin last night.

Although Rock was expected to win comfortably, he made hard work of the attempt although referee Barney Wilson from Belfast scored him a 99 to 92 winner, with only one round going against him.

The real winner was the opportunity to re-establish professional boxing in Dublin and a capacity crowd crammed into the small stadium with a limited capacity of 500 people to watch a four-bout programme.

At top of the bill was Rock, who had lost only one of his 10 professional contests to date but he was far from impressive as the Englishman, who with an undistinguished background frustrated all his efforts to bring the fight to an early conclusion.

It has to be conceded, however, that Rock was never in serious trouble having won the first three rounds on this observer's card and it was not until the later stages of the contest that he seemed to be struggling to gain the kind of confidence which everyone had expected.

The evening started with a win for the former professional jockey, Willie Valentine, another Dubliner, who won conclusively in the super bantamweight contest, with the referee giving him all four rounds while leaving the Englishman, Graham McGrath trailing sadly behind him on a score of 40 to 32.

Much interest was centred on Ireland's most promising young boxer in the heavier division, Cathal O'Grady from Kildare. At cruiserweight, he still has a lot to learn and some poundage to gain but after eight successive wins in the professional arena he added another last night by stopping Nigel Rafferty from Sheffield, an experienced campaigner at this level, after one minute and 57 seconds of the second round.

What O'Grady has to guard against is the fact that of his nine victories eight have come within the distance. He needs to have a really tough contest at this level but on the other hand he cannot be blamed for the fact that he is so competent in what he has chosen to do and a very bright future surely lies ahead.

As far as the new venue was concerned it appeared to be an enormous success with a packed auditorium.

Nevertheless it has to be accepted that Jim Rock will have to be much more efficient with his punching if he is to advance much further. Last night against somebody who could be described as a journeyman, he had to go the distance in a ten round contest. It revealed that Rock, for all his obvious skills does not appear to have a knockout punch which, had it been available to him last night, would surely have ended this contest much earlier.

The guessing game is over. Barry Hearn, who helped Chris Eubank earn a fortune in the early Nineties, has been chosen to promote Naseem Hamed's next defence of his World Boxing Organisation featherweight title - a deal brokered by Eubank.

Although no official announcement has been made, Hamed is set to defend at the Royal Albert Hall in London on April 10th in his first contest since alienating significant sections of the boxing world in Atlantic City when he maintained his unbeaten record by outpointing Wayne McCullough last October.

Frank Warren's multi million pound deal with Sky Television, and his immensely profitable partnership with Hamed, plus the enduring Frank Maloney-Lennox Lewis alliance, had reduced Hearn to a peripheral role after several conspicuously successful years at the top.