Andy Lee made a triumphant return to his Irish homeland, scoring a technical knockout when usually-durable Belfast middleweight Ciaran Healy quit after four rounds, but the celebration of his countrymen was stilled moments later when unheralded Spaniard Kiko Martinez shocked Bernard Dunne, decking the previously unbeaten Irishman three times in less than a minute and a half on the way to a first-round TKO in their European junior featherweight title fight.

In what was his first professional fight in Ireland (and trainer/ manager Emanuel Steward’s first visit to Dublin since he brought Lennox Lewis there to knock out Justin Fortune a dozen years ago), the unbeaten (11-0) Lee was in control from start to finish against Healy (6-6-1), a late substitute who took the bout on a week’s notice.

“I knew I wouldn’t just  walk through him,” said Lee of Healy. “I just tried to keep boxing, and not let the crowd (all 8,000 of whom were apparently hoping to see a Duddyesque early knockout) influence me.”

“The idea was for Andy to start out boxing, but it became apparent that the guy (Healy) was in a survivor mode,” said Steward. “It’s hard to lay back and counterpunch when the other guy’s not fighting, but Andy adjusted well. He’s like Marvin Hagler like that: He’ll just take what his opponent gives him. Healy had his gloves up in front of his face, so Andy just started coming underneath with everything.”

“It was hard to get a rhythm, because frankly there wasn’t much coming back from him,” said Lee. “He had his gloves high and his head low, so I started to go to the body.”

In the second round, Lee landed a hard left to the body  that appeared to stray south of the beltline. Although it drew so much as an admonition from referee Emil Tiedt, Lee appeared to call a foul on himself, raising a glove and nodding in apology to Healy.

Then in the fourth, Lee moved in and slammed another left into Healy’s midsection. The Belfast opponent nearly pitched forward, and Lee backed away.

“I though he was going down, and I started to walk away,” said Lee. “But then I saw he was still upright, so I ran back over there to hit him again.”

Healy, in any case, had had enough. When the bell rang ending the fourth, he signaled his unwillingness to continue to his corner, and it went into the books as a fourth-round TKO.

“How many young fighters do you see stop an opponent with a body attack like that?” asked Steward. “Andy just systematically broke him down.”

The crowd, in any case, embraced Lee so fervently that it took him nearly twenty minutes to get to his dressing room.

“It was brilliant, fantastic,” said Lee. “That was a new experience for me.”

A few minutes later, Dunne entered the ring to the strains of the Pogues’ version of “The Irish Rover.” The song lasted slightly longer than the fight did.

Dunne’s promoter Brian Peters had engineered a string of successes for the 122-pounder, who spent his early career training under Freddie Roach and fighting for Sugar Ray Leonard boxing. Most of the opponents for Dunne’s Dublin fights had been carefully chosen, but Peters had no say in this one: Martinez, who had piled up a 16-0 record without ever leaving Spain, was an EBU mandatory.

Twenty seconds into the fight, Martinez came swarming at Dunne, throwing a wild left and right that both glanced off his head, and then running right over him. (Although both punches had landed, Martinez actually knocked Dunne down with his chest, so it wasn’t immediately clear that referee Terry O’Connor would give him a count, but he did.)

Dunne, still woozy from his trip to the canvas, might have been better advised to grab Martinez in a bear hug then and there and try to last the round, but, unaccustomed to being in such desperate straits so early, he instead tried to fight back. This time Martinez got him with a solid overhand right off the side of his head,  and he was down again.

The first knockdown had elicited a collective gasp from the crowd. With the second, 8,000 Irishmen winced in unison, and many of them, no doubt, reached for their rosary beads, hoping to find some help that might get Dunne through the round.

Martinez jumped on him and landed two lefts and a right. Dunne pitched forward, and was already on the way down when O’Connor rushed between the fighters to stop it. The whole thing had taken just a minute and 26 seconds.

“I just got caught cold,” said an apologetic Dunne (now 24-1) . “I’m disappointed for myself, but I’m possibly more disappointed for all of you people.” (He indicated his adoring public.)

Brian Peters, it should be said, took this turn of events about as well who has just watched half a million euros go up in smoke could possibly take it.

The party, in any case, was clearly over. Some in the crowd were moved to tears as they filed out of the building. Lee, who has seen his share of wins and losses in his travels with Steward over the past three years, was stunned by the transformation in the crowd.

“It was like somebody had died,” he said.

Even Kiko Martinez appeared to share the pain of his Irish hosts.

“This is boxing,” said Martinez through an interpreter. “Boxing is a sport. I’m sorry for everybody. But that’s boxing.”

Tony Oakey and Brian McGee waged a twelve-round battle for the British light-heavyweight title that failed to produce a winner. Oakey (24-2-1), the Frank Maloney-managed former Commonwealth champion who served a year-long suspension three years ago after testing positive for cocaine, was cut on several occasion – in the third, when he incurred a seemingly bad gash near his right eye as well as a scalp wound, and in the ninth, when he was cut again below the right eye – but Jimmy Tibbs’ superior work in the corner prevented the wounds from becoming a factor, and Magee (28-3-1) was unable to press his advantage.

Oakey came on strong from the midpoint on, but Magee rallied to close the show, winning the last two rounds. One judge, Mickey Vann, scored it 116-113 for Magee, but the other two, Ian John Lewis and Terry O’Connell, both had it level at 114-114. The Boxingtalk scorecard favored Oakey, 115-113, but there were several close rounds, and switching one of them would have produced a draw on ours as well. Although the crowd didn’t much like the draw, we had no problem with it, and suspect that both Oakey and Magee were satisfied as well.

Steward wasn’t the only famous cornerman working at the Point Saturday night. Ricky Hatton flew over from England to man the spit-bucket for his stablemate and sometime sparring partner Matthew Macklin. Macklin is from Birmingham, but owns dual citizenship (he has Irish grandparents on both sides) and formerly owned the Irish middleweight title. Macklin (19-2) dominated veteran Darren Rhodes (21-13-3) for three rounds before flooring him with a big right hand in the fourth. Rhodes displayed absolutely no interest in getting up, and took referee David Irving’s ten-count in a sitting position.

If you’re wondering what kind of shape Hatton has gotten himself into two months ahead of his clash with Floyd Mayweather, the answer is that he hasn’t. Ricky looked bigger than Macklin, and since he planned to spend the next day at Dublin’s Croke Park, cheering for his ancestral homeland, Kerry, in their All-Ireland football semifinal match against Dublin, we’re assuming that the diet won’t start until Monday at the earliest.

Northern Ireland welterweight Paul McCloskey (11-0) knocked down Italian Alredo De Feto (12-4) in the seventh round on the way to a 80-69 points decision. De Freto, who had his mouthpiece knocked out in the fifth round, also spit it out once in that stanza and twice in the next, and referee Sean Russell – the lone scoring official – apparently took a dim view of it, awarding McCloskey three 10-8 rounds despite only one knockdown.

In a pair of 4-round prelims, Sheffield junior middle Nicky Smedley (now 10-0) outpointed Surinder Sekhon (2-15) and Northern Ireland 154-pounder Willie Thompson (2-0) decisioned Arthur Jashkul (2-11) of Latvia.