EVERYONE remembers Michael Conlan’s loss to Vladimir Nikitin at the Rio Olympic Games, but the Russian actually beat the Belfast featherweight twice during their amateur days. Conlan says there won’t be a third time in what is “the biggest” fight of his boxing career.
Prior to Rio, Conlan and Nikitin met in Almaty, Lithuania in 2013 in the quarter-finals of the European Championships. Nikitin was totally out-boxed but he did land eye-catching shots which impressed the judges at ringside and he got the decision.
Conlan wasn’t happy but he took it on the chin, switched to an aggressive front-front style in Rio and battered Nikitin. He was the clear winner with everyone but the judges and quit the amateur game disillusioned soon afterwards.
The third meeting of the ring warriors is at Feile an Phobail in Falls Park, Belfast on August 3 and the Russian and his team are convinced he’ll make it three out of three.
Of course, Conlan sees it differently.
“He has the two wins and if you were looking at the odds he must be favourite to beat me if he’s beat me twice already and I haven’t beat him once,” he said.
“For me, in my head, this is a really hard fight and I’ve got to go in there and take this guy out.
“I actually thought I won the first fight but it was a lot closer (than the second) and I even reacted like that when I heard the decision, I was like: ‘Come on man’. But what happened then and what happened in Rio is going to be irrelevant the next night.
“All that will be relevant is who turns up and who has put the most work in and I believe that no-one in the world is working harder than me right now. I’m feeling fantastic, I really am, I don’t think I’ve ever felt like this in terms of mindset.
“This is a special one for me. I’m positive and determined and I’m pushing through barriers in training that I’ve never pushed through before. I’m doing things in training which I haven’t done and I’m working on new things.
“People are going to think about how I’m going to box but come the night you’ll see a different animal.”
Conlan has been training with coach Adam Booth solidly for the last two months and he’ll be based in London until fight week. He says he has no intention of letting the fight go to points this time around.
“The fact that it’s in west Belfast, in the Feile is something that I never could have imagined,” he said.
“I knew I’d be fighting in the Feile at some stage because when I turned pro we did speak about it with the Feile and they were saying from the start: ‘We need to get you here, we need you headlining the Feile’.
“I was thinking of world title fights or something big like that but the fact that it’s against Vladimir Nikitin in the Park…. It’ll be a special night and it’s not going to points, I’m, not letting it go to points.
“He said recently: ‘Michael Conlan is an amateur boxer and he still has an amateur style’. This guy is so far wrong and so deluded at the minute, it’s unbelievable.
“If he wants to believe I’ll be running around trying to score points, that’s up to him but he’s better be prepared.”
Since his pro career started in a blaze of publicity at Madison Square Garden in 2017, Conlan has been expected to win every fight convincingly. The weight of expectation can be difficult to bear.
“Every fight I’ve had has been against a decent opponent but I’ve been expected to win,” he said.
“Everybody just thinks you’re going to win and that’s hard. Those fights are harder to get up for and harder to train for but this one hasn’t been like that.
“I’ve been training every day because I know how hard he’s training and I know how much he wants it so, for me, this is the biggest fight of my career so far – amateur or professional – and I have been giving it absolutely everything.”
CARL Frampton’s next fight will be in Philadelphia on Saturday, August 10 against an as yet unnamed opponent.
MTK's Jamie Conlan has confirmed ‘The Jackal’, who hasn’t been in action since his December 22 loss to IBF featherweight champion Josh Warrington, is due to top the bill at the Liacouras Center, the venue for the Jono Carroll versus Tevin Farmer and Katie Taylor v Rose Volante world title fights on St Patrick’s weekend.
Frampton had said he wanted a fight this summer to prepare for a shot at WBO champion Oscar Valdez before the end of the year. Valdez (26-0 with 20 stoppage wins) has been mulling over a move up to super-featherweight but could postpone the switch to accommodate Frampton in Las Vegas.
ANDY Ruiz Jr has said he will be even more prepared for his rematch against Anthony Joshua after claiming a shock victory over the Briton in New York earlier this month.
The 29-year-old took to the streets of California, where he was born, in an open-top car to celebrate winning the IBF, WBA and WBO titles with a seventh-round stoppage victory at Madison Square Garden.
The Mexican-American boxer returned to the city of Imperial for the parade held in his honour and told reporters he was sure he could get the better of Joshua once again.
"The rematch is going to be the same. I am going to be more prepared and more ready,” he said.
"I know his flaws. I can do a lot better. The only thing that he can do is just run around, he's not good at boxing."
Joshua was on the receiving end of one of the biggest shocks in the history of heavyweight boxing on his United States debut on June 1.
He was knocked down twice in the third round and twice more in the seventh, forcing referee Mike Griffin to stop the contest.
Joshua's promoter Eddie Hearn announced days after the fight that the contracted rematch clause had been triggered and the second fight will take place in November or December.
"People thought I wasn't going to do anything, I was too big, too overweight," Ruiz Jr added. "I don't want to say all the things I am going to change.
"There is going to be a lot of changing, I am going to come at a better weight this time. It's going to be a hell of a fight."
