(MF Pro)
There are no perfect endings in boxing. Most are bad, or just sad, and even so-called happy ones are often rewritten when the satisfaction of finishing on a win becomes the impetus to return and undo good work. In fact, the only choice you have is when. You seldom get to choose how it ends, but you can choose when it ends. That is up to you, the extent of your autonomy. That is a decision only you can make.
In the case of Ireland’s Michael Conlan, he chose Friday night in Belfast. It had not been his original plan, of course, but sometimes that is the way it goes. His original plan, ahead of fighting America’s Kevin Walsh, was to exorcise demons – Conlan’s two previous outings at Belfast’s SSE Arena had ended in defeat – and continue moving towards a shot at a world featherweight title. However, boxing, as is its custom, had other things in mind for the 34-year-old featherweight.
Rather than give him his redemption story, or even a bridge to cross en route to a title shot, Conlan discovered instead that his time was now up. That didn’t necessarily mean he had to now retire – that decision remained his – but the defeat to Walsh offered Conlan, in a pragmatic sense, everything a fighter would want their final fight to offer. It offered frustration, it offered disappointment, and it offered enough indications to both the fighter and those around him that the reality of the situation could no longer be ignored.
In an ideal world, yes, Conlan would have liked to have retired on a win, as every boxer does. Yet the truth of the matter is, few boxers will ever have the luxury of retiring on a win; not when the temptation to carry on is too great if still winning fights and riding high. That’s why sometimes a “good defeat” – or at least a revealing one – is the preferred option when it comes to pinpointing the ideal note on which to go out.
In Belfast on Friday, that is precisely what Conlan got. No, he wouldn’t have been pleased with how it all turned out – the fight, his performance, The End – but, given the alternatives, he would have accepted his cue to leave and been thankful in some ways that it happened like that. He was, after all, at home, surrounded by his friends and family. He was also struggling to beat an opponent he would have beaten with ease at his very best, the mother of all clues. Not just that, there was frustration on Conlan’s face and in his body language…
2026-03-23 13:48:31
