THE NIGHT HAD a greenish hue but the right hand that ended it was curiously embalmed in white, gold and blue.
Michael Conlan revealed after his spectacular fourth-round knockout of Jack Bateson at the 3Arena that the Englishman’s team had refused him permission to wear his orthopaedic gloves, which pack extra padding to protect his hands. Bateson’s father and trainer, Mark, insisted that Conlan instead wear his son’s spare gloves, which were Leeds United-coloured and packed with horse hair.
They didn’t match Conlan’s Irish-themed outfit but they did the trick. The Belfast man, who had boxed southpaw for most of the contest to this point, switched to orthodox, lowered the visitor’s guard with a left-handed jab, and splattered Bateson across the canvas with a highlight-reel overhand right.
“I told him it was the biggest mistake they made,” Conlan says. “My gloves are more spongy and he probably wouldn’t have been getting hurt as easy if he had just let me use my gloves.
“It felt great. And as soon as it landed, I knew it was over.
“‘That’s for not letting me use my gloves — you take that’,” the Belfast man laughs.
“Listen, I respect Jack so much. And I hope he’s well, I hope he goes home to his family safe. I say a prayer before every single fight that my opponents go home to their family safe, same as myself.”
Bateson, a former European bronze medallist who brought with him to the ring a record of 20-1-1 (6KOs), is no world-beater as a pro, but the suspicion was the same of Conlan heading into their contest: Belfast’s former amateur world champion has suffered three stoppage defeats, two of them in world-title fights — albeit his crushing losses to Alberto Lopez and Jordan Gill took place during a period of personal turmoil and family complications.
Extenuating circumstances don’t protect the brain or body, however. Featherweight is a young man’s game and Conlan is arguably older in boxing years than his real-life age of 33. The majority of boxing fans understandably presumed him finished after his shock loss to Gill, who, with all due respect, is not as good as Michael Conlan should have been that night in December 2023.
Advertisement
But with Conlan considered past his sell-by date, his bout with Bateson was a tough fight to call even for the oddsmakers, with the Irishman fancied only by a narrow margin to pick up the second straight win of his comeback effort.
As such, Conlan’s celebration was as feral as his performance had been composed. Hoisted on the shoulders of his new gym-mate, Junaid Bostan (10-0, 8KOs), he repeatedly snarled “I’m back” to every supporter, journalist and camera in the building.
But really, the person to whom he was issuing this decree was himself. And where age is an advantage to Conlan is that he has lived enough life to know that he doesn’t need to convince anybody else.
“I just felt like I’m back, y’know?” he says.
You heard me screaming after because I’m probably one of the most criticised fighters from the island at times, but I proved to myself that I’m still there.
“And I know what I want. I still believe I can be world champion and I think tonight I showed a glimpse of that.
“I don’t give a fuck what anybody says. I actually don’t care, and that’s something that I’ve learned over the last while. Like, tonight, I didn’t prove anything to anybody. I proved it to myself. I don’t care about other people’s opinions. If I do that, I’ll forever be down in the dumps because I get an awful lot of hate.
If BBC Northern Ireland put an article up about me, there’ll be 900 comments and probably 890 of them are negative comments. So, like, what’s the point of caring? It’s irrelevant.
“Love me or hate me, I’m still going to do what I do,” Conlan smiles.
He’ll do it next either at the end of this year or on St Patrick’s weekend in 2026. Sitting with his new promoter, Kalle Sauerland, at his post-fight press conference, Conlan’s instructions are clear: “[A] world title is what I want. That’s the route I want and if that’s not a possibility, a final eliminator. Or if that’s not a possibility, the biggest fight, the biggest money possible.”
Saureland, whose Wasserman Boxing outfit ran Friday night’s show at the 3Arena, acquiesced to a degree, but he made the point that a boxer of Conlan’s profile and pulling power can typically skip the eliminator route: even world champions follow the money, and any of them would jump at the chance to make a voluntary defence against a ticket seller who has so far come up short at their level.
“One thing’s for sure,” Conlan adds. “I want the rest of my fights either to be here in Dublin or MSG (Madison Square Garden, New York).”
That a boxer who achieved such mainstream stardom in his home country as an amateur would fight for the first time as a professional in its capital city only nine years later is a shame.
Conlan disassociated from the infamous MTK Global a year or so before the USA announced sanctions against its co-founder, Daniel Kinahan. In a recent interview with The 42, he expressed his regret that he had been unable to recreate ‘the Bernard Dunne days’ in Dublin while he was managed by MTK, which had become a behemoth in world boxing by the time Conlan let his contract run out in 2021.
Sitting upstairs in the 3Arena on Friday night, Conlan — who is now self-managed having also parted company with his older brother, Jamie — says: “To be honest, I want to bring bigtime boxing back to Dublin. I think it’s been starved of it for a very long time.
“Katie [Taylor] has brought it here but the big shows have been sporadic here; they haven’t been consistent, but I would like to make it a consistent thing.”
Fair to say @mickconlan11 has always known how to make an entrance.
Joined on his ring-walk in Dublin tonight by @SimonZebo and James McClean, with Róisín O belting out ‘Grace.’
Promoter Sauerland adds, “I think a world title is an open-air fight here. I think even with the upstairs open at the 3Arena, I don’t think it’s big enough.”
He might be right: while only around 4,500 tickets — i.e. seats in the lower tier and on the floor of the 3Arena — were put on sale for Friday’s test-the-water meeting with Bateson, that allocation sold out with ease. The atmosphere as Conlan emerged on stage to Róisín O’s live performance of ‘Grace’, flanked by James McClean and Simon Zebo for his ring-walk, rivalled that of any night in Belfast and New York. The knockout, which again sent The Point berserk, was a statement — not that Conlan is fully ‘back’, necessarily, but that his final push for a world title might be worth supporting.
Conlan has trimmed a lot of the fat from his life. It’s effectively him, his wife and children, and his small team in Sheffield against the world now.
While seeking a new trainer ahead of this comeback effort, he worked out with several whose technical acumen was excellent. But Grant Smith was the only coach who pulled him on the mistakes that he knew he was making. Conlan knew then that Smith was the right man to steer him on the final leg of his boxing journey.
All signs on Friday pointed towards their relationship being invigorative. Stopping Jack Bateson inside four rounds is nothing to be sniffed at, and Conlan looked good doing it. He’s happier out of the ring than he was before his defeats to Luis Alberto Lopez and Jordan Gill. He looked sharper and better-conditioned within it, too.
One can’t help but wonder what might have been possible in his professional career had he walked into Grant Smith’s Steel City gym a few years earlier, although Conlan says, “I don’t think like that.” He is instead more focused on the future, and what might still be possible with his new team.
“There’s no point in thinking ‘what if’, because it’s not that,” Conlan says. “It’s ‘we’re here now, and it can still happen’. There’s no point dwelling on the past. I’ve lost, so be it. What was meant to happen happened, and now I’m here for a purpose: to be a world champion. And I’m with the right team, so I’m happy.”
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Close
Comments
This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic.
Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy
here
before taking part.
'I still believe I can be world champion and I think tonight I showed a glimpse of that'
THE NIGHT HAD a greenish hue but the right hand that ended it was curiously embalmed in white, gold and blue.
Michael Conlan revealed after his spectacular fourth-round knockout of Jack Bateson at the 3Arena that the Englishman’s team had refused him permission to wear his orthopaedic gloves, which pack extra padding to protect his hands. Bateson’s father and trainer, Mark, insisted that Conlan instead wear his son’s spare gloves, which were Leeds United-coloured and packed with horse hair.
They didn’t match Conlan’s Irish-themed outfit but they did the trick. The Belfast man, who had boxed southpaw for most of the contest to this point, switched to orthodox, lowered the visitor’s guard with a left-handed jab, and splattered Bateson across the canvas with a highlight-reel overhand right.
“I told him it was the biggest mistake they made,” Conlan says. “My gloves are more spongy and he probably wouldn’t have been getting hurt as easy if he had just let me use my gloves.
“It felt great. And as soon as it landed, I knew it was over.
“‘That’s for not letting me use my gloves — you take that’,” the Belfast man laughs.
“Listen, I respect Jack so much. And I hope he’s well, I hope he goes home to his family safe. I say a prayer before every single fight that my opponents go home to their family safe, same as myself.”
Bateson, a former European bronze medallist who brought with him to the ring a record of 20-1-1 (6KOs), is no world-beater as a pro, but the suspicion was the same of Conlan heading into their contest: Belfast’s former amateur world champion has suffered three stoppage defeats, two of them in world-title fights — albeit his crushing losses to Alberto Lopez and Jordan Gill took place during a period of personal turmoil and family complications.
Extenuating circumstances don’t protect the brain or body, however. Featherweight is a young man’s game and Conlan is arguably older in boxing years than his real-life age of 33. The majority of boxing fans understandably presumed him finished after his shock loss to Gill, who, with all due respect, is not as good as Michael Conlan should have been that night in December 2023.
But with Conlan considered past his sell-by date, his bout with Bateson was a tough fight to call even for the oddsmakers, with the Irishman fancied only by a narrow margin to pick up the second straight win of his comeback effort.
As such, Conlan’s celebration was as feral as his performance had been composed. Hoisted on the shoulders of his new gym-mate, Junaid Bostan (10-0, 8KOs), he repeatedly snarled “I’m back” to every supporter, journalist and camera in the building.
But really, the person to whom he was issuing this decree was himself. And where age is an advantage to Conlan is that he has lived enough life to know that he doesn’t need to convince anybody else.
“I just felt like I’m back, y’know?” he says.
“And I know what I want. I still believe I can be world champion and I think tonight I showed a glimpse of that.
“I don’t give a fuck what anybody says. I actually don’t care, and that’s something that I’ve learned over the last while. Like, tonight, I didn’t prove anything to anybody. I proved it to myself. I don’t care about other people’s opinions. If I do that, I’ll forever be down in the dumps because I get an awful lot of hate.
“Love me or hate me, I’m still going to do what I do,” Conlan smiles.
He’ll do it next either at the end of this year or on St Patrick’s weekend in 2026. Sitting with his new promoter, Kalle Sauerland, at his post-fight press conference, Conlan’s instructions are clear: “[A] world title is what I want. That’s the route I want and if that’s not a possibility, a final eliminator. Or if that’s not a possibility, the biggest fight, the biggest money possible.”
Saureland, whose Wasserman Boxing outfit ran Friday night’s show at the 3Arena, acquiesced to a degree, but he made the point that a boxer of Conlan’s profile and pulling power can typically skip the eliminator route: even world champions follow the money, and any of them would jump at the chance to make a voluntary defence against a ticket seller who has so far come up short at their level.
“One thing’s for sure,” Conlan adds. “I want the rest of my fights either to be here in Dublin or MSG (Madison Square Garden, New York).”
That a boxer who achieved such mainstream stardom in his home country as an amateur would fight for the first time as a professional in its capital city only nine years later is a shame.
Conlan disassociated from the infamous MTK Global a year or so before the USA announced sanctions against its co-founder, Daniel Kinahan. In a recent interview with The 42, he expressed his regret that he had been unable to recreate ‘the Bernard Dunne days’ in Dublin while he was managed by MTK, which had become a behemoth in world boxing by the time Conlan let his contract run out in 2021.
Sitting upstairs in the 3Arena on Friday night, Conlan — who is now self-managed having also parted company with his older brother, Jamie — says: “To be honest, I want to bring bigtime boxing back to Dublin. I think it’s been starved of it for a very long time.
“Katie [Taylor] has brought it here but the big shows have been sporadic here; they haven’t been consistent, but I would like to make it a consistent thing.”
Promoter Sauerland adds, “I think a world title is an open-air fight here. I think even with the upstairs open at the 3Arena, I don’t think it’s big enough.”
He might be right: while only around 4,500 tickets — i.e. seats in the lower tier and on the floor of the 3Arena — were put on sale for Friday’s test-the-water meeting with Bateson, that allocation sold out with ease. The atmosphere as Conlan emerged on stage to Róisín O’s live performance of ‘Grace’, flanked by James McClean and Simon Zebo for his ring-walk, rivalled that of any night in Belfast and New York. The knockout, which again sent The Point berserk, was a statement — not that Conlan is fully ‘back’, necessarily, but that his final push for a world title might be worth supporting.
Conlan has trimmed a lot of the fat from his life. It’s effectively him, his wife and children, and his small team in Sheffield against the world now.
While seeking a new trainer ahead of this comeback effort, he worked out with several whose technical acumen was excellent. But Grant Smith was the only coach who pulled him on the mistakes that he knew he was making. Conlan knew then that Smith was the right man to steer him on the final leg of his boxing journey.
All signs on Friday pointed towards their relationship being invigorative. Stopping Jack Bateson inside four rounds is nothing to be sniffed at, and Conlan looked good doing it. He’s happier out of the ring than he was before his defeats to Luis Alberto Lopez and Jordan Gill. He looked sharper and better-conditioned within it, too.
One can’t help but wonder what might have been possible in his professional career had he walked into Grant Smith’s Steel City gym a few years earlier, although Conlan says, “I don’t think like that.” He is instead more focused on the future, and what might still be possible with his new team.
“There’s no point in thinking ‘what if’, because it’s not that,” Conlan says. “It’s ‘we’re here now, and it can still happen’. There’s no point dwelling on the past. I’ve lost, so be it. What was meant to happen happened, and now I’m here for a purpose: to be a world champion. And I’m with the right team, so I’m happy.”
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Boxing Michael Conlan one last push