Feet on the ground – Conor Wallace not getting carried away with early title success

Neither Conor Wallace [7(5)-0] or those around him are getting carried away with his early success.

The Newry fighter relocated to Australia this time 18 months ago, teamed up with the Fortitude Gym and debuted Down Under in September of 2018.

Within four months and four fights he won State honours, winning the Queensland title. He added to the honours list winning the Australian light heavyweight title when beating Mitchell Whitelaw in October.

It’s a lot of success to have in a debut year, but coach and manager Steve Deller assures the fighter remains grounded.

Deller has been impressed with how the former underage amateur of note has adapted, but seems more impressed by the undefeated Ulsterman’s temperament.

“Conor is adapting more to the pro style every day and it is great to work with such a young hungry eager to learn fighter. He has had success but it hasn’t gone to his head , we are lucking he received good grounding from International travelling as a amateur for Ireland. Plus Conor reminds me he will always keep his feet on the ground,” Deller told Irish-boxing.com.

Only misfortune prevented Wallace from picking up the Australian title within a year of turning over, but he has still managed it quicker than most of his contemporaries.

Deller, who worked with Dennis Hogan in the past and is training Belfast welter Nathan Watson, points out it’s a sizable achievement, but only the start for a fighter he has genuine fate in.

“I told you about 12 months ago Conor would win the Australian Light heavyweight tile with in 12 months and he did it in 13 months. He would have done it within the year but we had to postpone the fight by two months due to our gym burning down,” he explains before talking through the fight.

“As each round went on Conor got better and better as he was able to pull his opponent apart with his lethal jab. It was a big achievement. When we had Conors fellow countryman training at Fortitude gym it took Dennis Hogan 16 fights before he was ready to fight for a Australian title , Conor won the Australian title in his seventh fight. Like Dennis when Conor got the chance to fight for the Australian title he took it with both hands.”

If Wallace is to continue progress a-la Hogan, he could the latest Irish fighter to reach world level via the Aussie route.

However, for now, his team want to remain at domestic level and build experience from there.

“We are looking at a few Australian title defences and then we can move up from there. We feel that we have a very exciting young talent that needs to be developed ready for big fights in late 2020 and early 2021. Conor is surrounded by a good team with his major sponsors The Doss House getting behind him in our journey to a world title win.”