MANCHESTER, England — Leo Atang’s eagerly awaited pro debut lasted all of two minutes and 29 seconds Saturday night.

The 18-year-old heavyweight prospect from York made short work of Milen Paunov (7-16, 5 KOs), stopping the Bulgarian with a series of hard left hooks to the body in the opening round on the Jack Catterall-Harlem Eubank undercard at AO Arena.

Atang (1-0, 1 KO) won a host of amateur titles and was crowned the under-19 world champion last November. Although he got rid of Paunov in short order, he showed plenty of potential. Atang didn’t allow himself to get carried away by the occasion and used his jab well to soften Paunov up and disguise that well-picked left hook to the body.

After the fight, Atang’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, said that he had received a message from Turki Alalshikh. The head of Riyadh Season praised the youngster and announced that he will keep him busy and take him around the world.

Also Saturday night, Pat Brown (3-0, 3 KOs) got his second stoppage in two weeks by blowing away Lewis Oakford inside a round.

On paper, Wycombe’s Oakford (6-3), represented a good test at such an early stage of the 2024 Olympian’s career. But he couldn’t match the Manchester cruiserweight’s size or sheer physicality.

Brown patiently stalked the constantly moving Oakford, wasting little. Before too long, Oakford found himself backed into a corner and Brown cut loose. The 25 year-old Brown is deceptively fast and landed a series of hard, clubbing blows to head and body and forced the referee, John Latham, to jump in and stop the action after 2:06 of the opening round.

Oakford never went down, but he was offering precious little in return and a stoppage was inevitable.