It was chilly enough Friday evening, in the wind-swept parking lot behind the Fantasy Springs casino, that the sign girls sat between the rounds wrapped in quilts. John Michael Johnson, no dummy, decided to take care of business as fast as he could and get back into his bathrobe.

Fighting for the International Boxing Association's version of the featherweight championship, Johnson, a San Antonio native, scoped out the flamboyant and favored Augie Sanchez for 21 seconds, then hit him with a straight right hand hard enough to knock the sequins off Sanchez's fancy shorts.

Beaten only twice in his 30 previous fights, Sanchez, from Las Vegas, went down on his back and stayed there for five minutes.

"Never did that before," said Johnson, 30-7 with 23 knockouts. "Never in my life. I always start out slow."

But Johnson had predicted a first-round knockout just before climbing into the ring -- and delivered. He threw three punches, one of which stung Sanchez, then unloaded with the fourth.

"I love straight-up fighters," he said through a grin.

"All week," Johnson went on, "there was the talk about how slow I start out. So I thought, `What if I change it around?' I told my trainer, `I'm gonna knock him out in the first round.' "

As he said this, three cornermen nodded their affirmation.

Sanchez, whose two prior losses, both by knockout, suggested to some a glass jaw, is ranked fourth by the IBF and fifth by the WBO. Johnson, once the WBO champ, is still No. 8 on that list.

A shivering crowd of about 1,500 paid between $20 and $200 to watch Sugar Ray Leonard's first promotion at the casino. Many (if not most) stood in a 50-yard long line beforehand to get the old champ's autograph.

Earlier, in a battle of heavies, Robert Davis extended his record to 26-3 with a unanimous 10-round decision, surviving two first-round knockdowns by underdog Frankie Swindell and a one-point deduction for a last-round low blow.

In a junior middleweight bout, Hector Quiroz, a 153-pound Mexican who sometimes trains out of Mira Loma, was doing fine until early in the fourth round, when Panamanian Santiago Samaniego caught him flush between the eyes with a hard straight right and Quiroz went down. He beat the count, but the referee stopped it anyway. Quiroz was attempting to step up two weight classes against a quality fighter.

"I knew he was a junior welterweight and that I should have no problem," said Samaniego, a first cousin of Roberto Duran, who hiked his record to 35-6-1. "I knew he doesn't hit as hard as I do."

Quiroz is 34-6-1.

Bridgett Riley bled sufficiently after a punch or a head butt, take your pick, that they went to the cards in the fifth round of her bout with Yolanda Gonzalez -- and Riley won it unanimously. Riley, a bantamweight from St. Louis, is 11-2.

But the liveliest round of the evening was probably the first one fought.

Swindell, an often-abused 5-11, 240-pounder with the kind of spare tire you'd find on a big rig, took a dozen or so of Davis' best punches in the opening round, then caught his heavily favored opponent with an enormous left.

"I never saw it coming," admitted Davis, who hit the deck twice in that round, absorbing a series of mind-clouding head shots.

From there Davis, a 6-3, 238-pounder from Akron, was a little more careful with Swindell, a last-minute replacement from Tennessee. Davis won 95-92 on two cards and 94-93 on the third.

"He didn't hurt me too much," Davis insisted. "He just caught me off guard. Next fight, I'll be more ready."

Swindell, now 37-22-3, called the decision "a Christmas present."