‘Difficult to come back’ – Eddie Hearn says Michael Conlan ‘has to think about his future’
Eddie Hearn suggests it may prove a defeat too far for Michael Conlan.
Conlan’s world title dreams were sunk when Jordan Gill stopped him in the seventh round of the ‘Get Back’ headliner in Belfast on Saturday.
In fact, according to the Matchroom Chairman the English fighter may have ended the Irish great’s career.
Hearn, who billed the fight as win or ‘bye bye’ for the Olympic medal winner in the build-up, says it would be ‘very difficult’ for the Belfast man to return to elite level – and wonders, as a serious competitor, would boxing at any other level be enough.
“It’s a fighter’s decision but it’s very difficult to come back from that because this is a guy that wants to challenge for world titles,” Hearn told Irish-boxing.com.
“He’s lost for world titles, which is always fair enough but now to get beaten again it will be very difficult to come back.”
The promoter also wonders if there are any excuses Conlan could use to convince himself he has another world title run in him.
“You look at the move to 130 and maybe you can say ‘maybe my defeats were weight related’ but then he got stopped by Jordan Gill, who isn’t an elite 130 yet.
“I think he’ll reflect on that and probably think about his future.”
The promoter, who may elect against returning to Belfast for the foreseeable after Saturday’s result, revealed Team Conlan had no issue with the stoppage. Indeed he said big brother Jamie Conlan was close to requesting the towel come in for his little brother.
“Just before the stoppage, Jamie Conlan stood up and looked at the corner as if to say let’s get the towel ready to go. I saw a bit on social media ‘the stoppage was too early’, but I don’t think so.
“There were no complaints from the corner or the Conlan team, as a fighter Mick would probably want to go out on the floor rather than his feet, but I think it was the right decision,” he adds before raising questions about Conlan’s punch resistance.
“I hate to take away from the brilliant performance of Jordan Gill but I don’t think Mick’s punch resistance is the same as it once was. It was a heavy knockout to Leigh Wood and a heavy knockout out to Lopez as well, they were great shots from Jordan Gill but although he kept coming back in the fight he kept getting hurt. Jordan Gill is a sharp puncher but he isn’t a huge puncher at 130 lbs so it was surprising how easily he was hurting Michael Conlan.
“I said in the build up it’s kind of like who has what left. I think you saw a faded Mick Conlan against a very good Jordan Gill who up at 130lbs looked like a completely different fighter. Michael got caught early and didn’t recover but started to come back into the fight. Still, you always felt like he was capable of getting hurt at any moment.”
