A BITTER verbal bout broke out yesterday evening at the official weigh in ceremony for tonight's world championship boxing bill at The Point in Dublin.

A surprise awaited the WBO featherweight title holder Naseem Hamed when Wayne McCullough showed up and challenged Naseem's opponent, Manuel Medina, for the title.

McCullough and Naseem flung nasty and sometimes vulgar abuse at each other until Naseem's promoter, Frank Warren intervened and handed McCullough a signed piece of paper offering him one million dollars to fight Naseem at a time and venue to be decided.

There has been a continuing antagonism between the two boxers for some time and last night's clash was the culmination of a series of allegations from both that each was avoiding the other.

McCullough was finally persuaded to leave the weigh in by a companion, but he took Warren's signed offer with him, promising to have it countersigned by his own manager, Mat Tinley, raising hopes that a clash between the two will take place.

Experienced boxing observers are not convinced that such a fight will be staged hi the foreseeable future.

Apart from the McCullough incident, all six boxers involved in tonight's triple world championship bill weighed in without any problems, clearing the way for what will be, in Irish terms, a unique night of boxing.