Michael Conlan moved to 10-0 and claimed the first belt of his professional career as a unanimous points decision win over Jason Cunningham saw him crowned the WBO Intercontinental Featherweight champion.
Fighting on the undercard of tonight's Josh Warrington-Carl Frampton fight, the Olympic silver medallist was utterly dominant in his first 10-rounder - the judges scoring the fight 97-92, 97-92, 98-92, despite a points deduction for repeated low blows.
Cunningham (29) had a record of 24 wins and five defeats from 29 pro fights coming into this bout against the heavily favoured Conlan, who was fighting for the first time since a ninth straight win in the pro ranks against Nicola Cipoletta back in October.
Conlan looked in control during the first of 10 three-minutes rounds at the Manchester Arena, but his English opponent began to find his range in the second before Conlan was warned by the referee for a couple of low blows in the third.
Developing into an entertaining fight by the fourth round, Conlan was moving well and landing some good shots before Cunningham fought back with some decent shots of his own.
It was more of the same in the fifth as the Belfast boxer moved well and found his shots, despite throwing a few more suspiciously low punches.
Referee Steve Gray deducted a point from Conlan in the sixth after yet another low blow. Perhaps buoyed by this decision, Cunningham put in a decent seventh round.
However Conlan underlined his dominance towards the end of the eighth, pummelling his outclassed opponent just before the bell. The ninth continued in the same vein, with Conlan picking his shots and looking in little danger at any stage.
Cunningham came out swinging in the last round in a desperate attempt to secure the necessary knockout, but Conlan absorbed his shots before counter-attacking late in the round and rocking the English fighter with numerous shots to the chin.
The brave Cunningham stood up and denied Conlan a seventh pro knockout, but the result was beyond doubt.
Meanwhile Billy Joe Saunders claimed a routine victory in his first bout since vacating his WBO middleweight title at the Manchester Arena.
Fighting for the first time this year after making headlines for the wrong reasons in recent months, Saunders saw his opponent Charles Adamu retire on his stool at the beginning of the fifth round.
Late replacement Adamu had been comprehensively outboxed over the first half of the scheduled eight-round contest by the unbeaten Saunders, who scaled a career-high 178 and a quarter pounds at Friday's weigh-in.
This was essentially a showcase for Saunders, who was fined £100,000 for misconduct by the British Boxing Board of Control after a video surfaced in which he appeared to offer money to a woman to perform a sex act in September.
He apologised for the incident but the following month he surrendered his world title to challenge the decision to deny him a licence to fight Demetrius Andrade after returning an adverse analytical finding in a Voluntary Anti-Doping Association (VADA) test.
But he ended a miserable year on a high note as he moved to 27-0 after dispatching Ghanaian fighter Adamu, who was five and a quarter pounds lighter than his foe.
Earlier in the evening the younger brother of former world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury made a winning start to his professional career.
Nineteen-year-old Tommy Fury, who had only a handful of amateur contests before switching to the paid ranks, rarely looked like stopping Latvian southpaw Jevgenijs Andrejevs over four rounds in the light-heavyweight division.
But his far superior work-rate and aggression saw him earn a comfortable 40-36 points decision against his 37-year-old opponent, who suffered his 103rd defeat in 117 professional outings.
