Representing Northern Ireland at Flyweight and winning Gold, in the Auckland Commonwealth Games. Results were: Defeated Benjamin Mwangata – Points Defeated Maurice Maina – Points Defeated Nokuthula Tshabangu – Points 1990 World Cup Representing Ireland at Flyweight and winning Bronze, in the Mumbai World Cup. Results were: Defeated Manoj Pingle – Points Defeated D.K. Park – Points Lost to Serafim Todorov – Points Defeated Fred Mutuweta – Points 1991 World Championships Representing Ireland at Bantamweight, in the Sydney World Championships. Results were: Defeated Felipe Costa – TKO (Round 2) Defeated Joseph Zabakly – Points Lost to Enrique Carrion – Points 1992 Olympic Games Representing Ireland at Bantamweight and winning Silver, in the Barcelona Olympic Games. Results were: Defeated Fred Mutuweta – Points Defeated Ahmed Abbood – Points Defeated Mohammed Sabo – Points Defeated Gwang-Sik Li – Points Lost to Joel Casamayor – Points Professional career In 1993 McCullough moved to Las Vegas to train under Eddie Futch, who agreed to train him after seeing him at the Olympics. McCullough always fought in neutral colours and did not have national anthems played at his fights; his supporters in Northern Ireland include Protestants and Catholics. Within a year of turning pro, he had won the North American Boxing Federation title. On 30 July 1995, less than 2½ years since his pro debut, he won the WBC championship by beating the champion Yasuei Yakushiji in Nagoya, Japan to become Ireland's first ever WBC world champion. He was the first fighter from Ireland or the UK to travel to Japan and win a belt. He defended his title twice before vacating the belt and moving up in weight to challenge WBC super bantamweight champion Daniel Zaragoza, but lost via a split decision in the WBC "Fight of the Year". After this fight, his wife Cheryl and Stuart Campbell began to manage his career when his original manager, Mat Tinley, became a boxing promoter. McCullough unsuccessfully challenged champions Naseem Hamed in 1998, and Erik Morales in 1999. In each of those exciting "Fight of the Year" contenders, he broke his opponent's lengthy run of KO wins while taking them the distance. Hamed had knocked out 18 opponents straight before McCullough, and was 30–0 at the time with 28 knockouts to his credit. Morales had knocked out 9 of his previous 9 opponents and was 34–0 at the time, also with 28 knockouts. Morales stated that