I just wanted to leave the ring and crawl into a hole because my dream had been crushed
“I remember feeling the energy from the crowd… I’ve never looked back at the fight, I had lived it and that was always how I thought about fights. Every time I went down it hurt even more because I couldn’t fulfil what the crowd wanted me to do. I probably still don’t realise how much I was respected… it was weird because you feel the warmth of the crowd for you and I could hear ‘Ole, Ole, Ole!’ and ‘Stand up for the Ulstermen!’ both being sung as the whole crowd got behind me, willing me to get to my feet when I was on the canvas,” said Conlan, now managing the career of brother Michael, whose latest bout in Madison Square Garden next week has been cancelled due to coronavirus.
“That was a surreal moment and they were cheering me as I stood in the ring after the fight when I just wanted to leave the ring and crawl into a hole because my dream had been crushed.
“I was just so down. I held it together until I got into the tunnel after the fight and the cameras were off and then I just crumbled… the tears came because the realisation set in that my career was over.
“Making the weight had played a part but I had moments like that before ahead of weighing in — even when I beat Anthony Nelson to win the Commonwealth title. Even having a conversation before that one took all my energy away, took all the air from my lungs, but you make weight, get off the scales and have a drink and tell yourself, ‘That was easy’. Every boxer is like that, we delude ourselves in some way or another. Paddy Barnes was the same, I’ve seen him nearly faint and then after the weighin tell people he feels great.
“I believed I was going to beat Ancajas because I had told myself that if I do this and that I can win but in hindsight now I would call myself an idiot for thinking like that.
“I always knew that no matter what I can knock the opponent out but also I was putting myself in danger of being knocked out. I lived on that edge, it was a gun-slinging attitude… it was how I always thought and it was idiotic at times because I didn’t live that way in life or in training or sparring, everything was meticulous but it always happened two or three days leading up to the fight.
“I would feel something change and just believed that no matter how tough it got I could out-tough you and drag you to somewhere you had never been. I relied on that more than I should have.”
Having weighed in for his championship bouts at 8st 3lb, the 33-year-old sips on his green tea at a comfortable 10st 11lb. Within two years of retirement, Conlan has become a major player in world boxing, guiding brother Michael’s career among many others who are connected to the MTK management firm, such as world champion Billy Joe Saunders.
It is with a certain irony that Conlan explains how he never really wanted to go down the path of professional boxing, having enjoyed a fine amateur career which was gilded with four Ulster senior titles. A fifth was on the cards but there would be a twist as Michael had just come onto the senior scene and the two St John Bosco ABC men had made the 2009 flyweight final.
“We had agreed that if we both made the final I would take the title but there was something about watching Michael winning the semi-final that changed my mind. On the way home I told my dad that it had to be Michael and I would step aside. The Commonwealth Games were coming up, I was thinking about his future and I was happy to just retire. My mum was happy for me to finish and my dad had accepted it,” said Conlan.
“From a young age I was Michael’s biggest supporter and critic. Whenever people came to me and said, ‘Are you the boxer?’ I’d say, ‘No, it’s my brother’ and I even do it now. Even when I won a fight I wouldn’t leave