DETROIT, Dec 11 (AP): She says she was never athletic. She never saw her famous father fight. Still.

Laila All has her sights set on a title fight of her own.

All took another major step in that direction Friday night with a second-round knockout of Nicolyn Armstrong for her third straight win to chants of "All, All.”

"That was a nice feeling.” said All. whose boxing career started in October, after she lost nine kilos (20 pounds). "But. I don’t pay much attention to that, because in the ring, it's Just me and that girl."

The 1.77 metre (5-foot-10) Ali. weighing in at 758 kilos (166 pounds), less than her taller opponent, knocked Armstrong (1-4) down late in the first round with a left jab. followed by three hard rights.

In the second round. Ali battered Armstrong in the corner, then knocked her flat on her back — as she had done her two previous opponents — with a left-right combination that brought a roar from the crowd of about 2.200 fans in the Riverview Ballroom of Cobo

Center.

"I see it as the better fighter won." Armstrong .said.

Referee Sam Williams stopped the bout immediately, awarding Ali the knockout.

"1 like boxing. I'm good at it," Ali said. "What else can I say?"

Ali's famous father, former three-time heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali. hasn't been in attendance since her debut. He was reportedly in Sicily on this night.

Ali, who earned 25.000 dollars for the bout, knocked out April Fowler, a waitress, in 31 seconds on October 8 at Verona. New York, and knocked out Shadina Pennybaker, an accounting student, on November 10 at Chester, West Virginia, with three seconds left in the fourth and final round. "There’s a lot more I could be doing. besides boxing." said Ali. who recently sold her nail salon in Los Angeles. "It's nothing to play with"

Armstrong, 31. who had to lose several pounds in the hours immediately before the bout to get down to 81 kilos (179 pounds). Armstrong, who received 2.500 dollars for her effort. won her pro debut in December 1997 by a second-round

technical knockout. But she had been knocked out three straight times — all in the first round — leading to this bout.

Ali's first two opponents were eoually untested. Fowler, 27. had fought just once as a pro. also being knocked out in the first round. Pennybaker. 28. was making her pro debut against Ali.

But that’s by design.

"I'll fight anybody, if they’re on my experience level," Ali said. 'There are certain people I’m not going to fight yet. because they have so much more experience, and my people don't want me in the ring with them yet.

"But I'm definitely not going to end up dodging people or not fighting peoples. That’s just not me."

Ali travels with her mother. Veronica Kennedy, the third of Muhammad Ali's four wives. She was 7 when her parents divorced.

Laila was too young to see her father fight in person, buf she has watched tapes of his bouts. She says her favourite is Ali's famed "rope-a-dope" knockout of George Foreman in Zaire in 1974.