Michael Conlan happy to see amateur boxing in better hands, P4
- Shidonna Raven
- 3 hours ago
- 4 min read
By Tom Ivers
This Article has been curated by UDB
September 2, 2025
Source: Boxing Scene
Source: Image Source: Unsplash
“Amateur boxing is very vital to professional boxing and to get the best professional fighters, you need some of the top amateurs,” Conlan said. “If you look at some of the best professional fighters of all time, they've been Olympic champions. You know, you've got your Muhammad Ali, [Floyd] Mayweather – bronze medalist, Andre Ward, [Vasiliy] Lomachenko, [Oleksandr] Usyk, all these guys, they all came through the Olympic system. And I think it's very vital that it stays there, and that's why I'm really happy that World Boxing is kind of now getting its foot in the door to take over that scene.”
Although the horrors of Rio make Conlan now look back on his amateur career with ill feeling, he still has fond memories when reflecting on becoming the first Irish male to win a world championship gold.
“You know what? It was unbelievable,” he said. “But, at the same time, it was the first time I'd been knocked down in my life, in the final and I'd just won the gold. I was more embarrassed. Like, I look back on it and go, ‘You're stupid, why didn't you just enjoy it more?’ In the moment, I didn't enjoy the moment as much because I was going, ‘Jesus Christ, I just got put down.
What the fuck?’ I was proper disgusted with myself because I was winning so well. And then what happened in the last round, listen, the guy who put me down is a puncher and he's fucking unified world champion already in the pros, Murodjon Akhmadaliev. He's fighting Naoya Inoue next. But, you know, I wish I had lived in that moment a bit more.
“But obviously, when it kind of settled in, being world champion, and being the first and only Irish man ever to do it, still the only Irish man ever to do it, mate, it changed my life. It made me. I became sports personality that year, Irish Sports Personality of The Year. The way I got spotted over here, I won that for Ireland. So it made me a household name at home. And that's why, when I'm fighting in Dublin now, I'm a bigger name in the south of Ireland because of that, because of the world championships and because of the Olympics and everything I've done. So, when I fight in the north, 50% of my tickets are bought from the south, which is unbelievable. So, I'm fully instilled to this day. And I'm excited about going back now because of that. Then that all stems back, starting off from the London 2012 Olympics, obviously, get my name on the scene. But then the world championships, winning sports personality, and then obviously, the Olympic rant helped an awful lot too.”
The world championships is incredibly hard to win, with the only British fighter ever to win a gold medal being Frankie Gavin back in 2007. So what would be Conlan’s advice to those attempting to add their names to the list of decorated winners?
“Enjoy every moment. Believe you're a champion already,” he said. “Have that self-belief in yourself, because self-belief will take you further than what you can imagine. You know, when I went to the world championships, I had just read The Secret [a book about the law of attraction]. And, I'm not lying, like, our sports psychologists, the team sports psychologists, were kind of looking at me like I was a bit crazy, because I was saying, ‘I've already won this, I'm just here to pick up a medal.’ And he was going, ‘What are you talking about?’ And I was like, ‘No, I promise.’
“He goes, ‘I love that, that’s brilliant.’ So I just kept saying it. And I remember, everything that happened, I was just like, ‘I just gotta go in here and just do what I have to do, because I've already won the gold, I just gotta pick up the medal.’ And there you go, I went and done it. So, when you have that self-belief and confidence in mind everything can be much easier. And, if you can see yourself, if you can, if you can see it, and you can visualise it and hold it, and feel every feeling that you're gonna feel, it will be achieved.
“I know there's a good few Irish fighters getting in as well,” he continued. “I wish them all the best, but I'll be honest, because of AIBA, my love for amateur boxing dwindled and I stopped watching it. But I'm sure that if this world championship is televised, with it being in the UK, hopefully it is, I'll be watching it.”
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