His replacement was Damian David Marchiano 15–4–1 (5 KO) of Argentina. However, his opponent pulled out of the fight. The Martinez camp stated that they knew there would be a first round victory and that many of them had placed bets worth thousands of pounds with Irish bookmakers at odds of 66/1 that Martinez would win in the first round.ĭunne had next been scheduled to fight Marcos Jimenez 13–1 (8 KO) of the Dominican Republic at the National Stadium on 12 July 2008. Dunne beat the count but was floored twice more before the referee stopped the fight within only 90 seconds of round one. Dunne appeared stunned and unaware of what had happened. However, Martinez quickly had Dunne on the canvas with an overhand right. The fight started with Dunne keeping his guard low and circling Martinez. On the night of the fight the Point Depot filled with expectant Irish boxing fans and the fight was beamed live on RTÉ, the Irish national television broadcaster. This was Martinez's first fight outside of Spain. Martinez and Dunne clashed on 25 August 2007 at the Point Theatre, Dublin, Ireland. The EBU made Kiko Martínez the mandatory challenger for Dunne's European super bantamweight title.

He followed that streak in June 2007, when he defended his EBU title, defeating Walstad Reider by unanimous decision. In March 2007 he defended the title by technical knock-out over Yersin Jailauov in the third round, in a mandatory EBU title defence. Dunne won the European Super bantamweight title on 11 November 2006 beating Esham Pickering on points in his home town of Dublin. Dunne won the lowly regarded IBC super bantamweight title by beating Sean Hughes in the National Stadium in Dublin.

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