Three strikes and out for Dunne

A TEXT-BOOK left hook perfectly placed on the point of the chin signalled the end of Bernard Dunne’s six-month reign as WBA world super bantamweight champion and transferred the belt to Thailand thunderball, Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym, before a stunned sell-out crowd at the O2 in Dublin’s Docklands on Saturday night.

The punch did not end the fight, but it sent the champion on the first of three visits to the canvas before the French referee, Jean Louis Legland, called the inevitable ceasefire.

That came with a mere three seconds remaining in round three of what was the Dubliner’s first defence of the title he snatched from Panamanian southpaw, Ricardo Cordoba, last March.