Michael Conlan began his professional boxing career with great fanfare and an ambition to become a multi-weight champion, but despite going close, he was unable to replicate his success as an amateur.<\/p>\n
The 34-year-old called time on his career following Friday’s defeat to Kevin Walsh in Belfast when his last roll of the dice to get back into title contention unravelled.<\/p>\n
A polarising figure, Conlan could sell out arenas and outdoor venues to the tune of 12,000, while eliciting the ire of others in his home town.<\/p>\n
What could not be disputed was he talent inside the ring, with his silky switch-hitting skills bringing his from the streets of west Belfast to the top of the amateur game and within a whisker as a pro.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t think I lost tonight but it was too close for my liking and no matter how I would lose, no matter if it’s a robbery, I said that would be my time,” Conlan told reporters in his dressing room after his defeat to Walsh.<\/p>\n
“It’s all very raw at the minute and how I’m answering questions is all emotion.<\/p>\n
“How light I feel at the minute is probably relief. I’ve had so much pressure on my, so many expectations, even my own.<\/p>\n
“I’ve not achieved what I wanted to but I said when I came back into it [in 2025] it would be if I achieve it, then great but if I don’t then so be it. This is the so be it situation and now I can spend time with my family.”<\/p>\n
Having followed his brothers into the boxing gym as a seven year old, Conlan would blossom into one of, if not the best Irish male amateurs.<\/p>\n
Collecting Antrim, Ulster and Irish titles as a junior, his first major international senior competition came at 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, where, as a 17-year-old, he came unstuck against Australia’s Jason Moloney.<\/p>\n
It was just the beginning as the following year, he won the first of five Irish Elite titles which earned him a place on the team for the World Championships in Baku, reaching the quarter-finals which earned a place at the 2012 Olympic Games in London.<\/p>\n
There, he made the big breakthrough, reaching the semi-finals where he lost to Cuba’s Robeisy Ramirez but returned with a bronze medal to great acclaim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Conlan began his professional boxing career with great fanfare and an ambition to become a multi-weight champion,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-554993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}