Fightnews spoke with McCullough and his wife/ manager Cheryl to find out what led to his withdrawal from the fight. Sounding full of disappointment McCullough told an all too familiar story of last minute replacements, possible no-shows and unworthy opponents.

According to The Pocket Rocket, he and the show's promoter, Brian Peters, had been going back on forth on possible opponents ever since McCullough was approached to fight on the undercard. Having operated at world level for some years McCullough felt he owed it both to himself and most importantly to the fans to be put in a fight with a "live" opponent and not just someone who was going to fall over. Being that he was going to be fighting in front of his countrymen for first time in some years McCullough felt especially strongly about this, wanting to give the crowd something cheer about.

After much delay Mexican Fracisco Mateos was finally named as McCullough's opponent. Although he has some very recognizable names on his record, Agapito Sanchez, Jhonny Gonzales, Hugo Dianzo and a most notably a knockout win over the great Raphael Marquez, Mateos' career has hardly been stellar of late having lost 7 of his last 8 fights. However, McCullough agreed to the fight only to find out two weeks prior to fight night that his opponent had run into some trouble in Mexico and was a possible no-show. Not wishing to make the long flight to Dublin only to be told he would put in against a last minute replacement, McCullough and his wife thought it prudent to withdraw from the card as with ten days until the bout they there was still a lot of uncertainty regarding his opponent.

"I'm really gutted about the way things turned out" Said McCullough form his home in Las Vegas. "I was really looking forward to getting back in the ring and had worked really hard in the gym. And now this!" He added "I feel really bad for the fans, but at the same time I didn't want to shortchange them. I hope they understand." He continued by saying that such was his disappointment that all the stress surrounding his pullout had left physically sick. However McCullough maintains that this setback will not stop him returning to the ring and says he hopes to fight before the end of the summer. Fightnews would like to thank The Pocket Rocket and we hope to see him in the back in the ring soon.