Another night of heroic failure for Wayne McCullough in Detroit last night where despite bringing his customary bravery and energy into the ring he was outclassed by a superior opponent, Erik Morales.

McCullough took Erik Morales, the superb world junior bantamweight champion to the 12th round and in doing so surprised many with his endurance if not, sadly, his punching power.

The 11th and 12th rounds of an extraordinary fight were object lessons in the cruelty of boxing. McCullough brave and good value to the end kept coming forward despite a bloodied left eye and being deterred by a series of well chosen punches from the Mexican champion.

By then Morales had taken everything which McCullough had to offer. Absorbed it and stayed standing. Long ago in London an evening of shady boxing dealings went down in legend as the Night of the Tijuana Tumblers in honour of the scarcely detectable pulses of a troupe of Mexican fighters imported for the purposes of decorating the canvas.

Unfortunately for Wayne McCullough when he faced Erik Morales, another native of the same hard Mexican border town last night, he proved to be a much tougher opponent and retained his WBC featherweight championship by a unanimous decision. All three judges opted for Morales scoring the fight 116 to 112 in two instances and 118 to 110 in the third.

Morales, the roaring favourite for the fight hadn't let anybody past the ninth round in seven defences of the title since taking the belt of Daniel Zaragoza in June 1997. last night, however, he revisited old territory during a long evening of work.

Enjoying advantages in height, reach and more marginally in weight he took the fight to McCullough early taking the measure of the Belfast man in the first minute before scoring with a few well chosen hits to the head late in the first.

The exchange ignited the bout. McCullough with no reverse facility in his psyche, came forward and they slugged it out with Morales back on the ropes for the remainder of the round with Morales scoring the better hit but McCullough throwing plentiful rights.

The Arena, not the sell out gig, predicted during the height of Prince Naseem's whirlwind publicity offensive last week was suitably enthused by the ferocity of the early flurry and the trend continued thereafter. Morales fought more flatfooted than Naseem Hamed did last October allowing McCullough to find the target more often but when the Mexican stepped forward aggressively he looked the stronger, trading effectively in close with a slashing right hook.

Morales made some impact on McCullough in the second round backing his opponent into a corner briefly, an occurrence which provoked a little hubris laden jig from McCullough as he danced back proving he was unhurt.

Towards the end of the third there was no shuffle though when Morales backed him across the ring diagonally landing a combination of punches all the way just before the bell.

McCullough survived, however, and enjoyed a good spell in the middle of the fourth when with characteristic gameness he took the momentum for a while scoring with body shots and backing Morales up for a while. The Mexican was indomitable, however, and came out in the fifth and landed a series of booming rights to McCullough's head, a couple of which appeared to take the challenger by surprise.

McCullough enjoyed a good round in the seventh as it became apparent that the fight was going to go the distance but Morales, who does his training at altitude in Colorado, never looked likely to finish weakly. As it was McCullough went into decline and suffered severe punishment in the final rounds.

Local referee Frank Garzia had a case to halt the bout in the final round; McCullough was taking heavy punishment and simply could not win. However, the official gave the Irishman the privilege of reaching the final bell.

McCullough said: "It was a good decision, he won the fight and he hit hard. In the fourth round he caught me in the ear and it was painful. He never really hurt me."

It was just a pity that the former WBC bantamweight champion did not have the power or punch to upset the 23-year-old champion in the final stages.

McCullough landed on plenty of occasions, but Morales simply soaked them up and went on to prove just why he is so highly rated.

It will be little satisfaction for McCullough actually threw more punches in the fight 928-917. But Morales landed 341 against 231 and that told the story.

For McCullough, the downward turn in his career has being marked by a some freakish misfortunes, apart from the run of the mill fallout with his manager and the irremediable lack of punching power. Last spring he was bitten by a spider and then some Nevada dust ripped the cornea of his eye and what momentum he had taken out of the creditable showing with Naseem Hamed last October was denied him.

At 29 and with his main chance apparently behind him the big paydays are likely to scarce in future.