MICHAEL Conlan says he will unleash his entire repertoire in a command performance against WBA featherweight champion Leigh Wood when he meets the Englishman in his native Nottingham next weekend.
Adam Booth-trained Conlan has no doubt that his best beats Wood’s best and so he intends to produce a career-high at a packed Nottingham Arena on March 12.
“He’s an opponent in front of me who I’ve got to beat and the best Michael Conlan beats the best Leigh Wood and I plan to be the best me possible,” he said.
“The camp has gone great, I’m in great shape and the camp has been fantastic. I’ve had fantastic training, fantastic preparation, great sparring… It’s been very good and I’ve performed very well throughout camp so I’m just looking forward to it.
“I’m in a great position, I’ve worked on things strenuously throughout this whole camp, I’ve worked on perfecting different things, adding different things and I think on March the 12th you’re going to be talking to a world champion.”
With 15 stoppage wins behind him, Wood is seen as the bigger puncher in the fight but he is not a devastating one-punch knockout specialist. He concedes that Conlan “can bang” and Belfast’s former amateur world champion intends to let his skills lead the way in Nottingham.
“I have so many attributes and different things I can do,” he said.
“I’ll see how he comes out and after the first few seconds I’ll be able to make a decision on what needs to be done and if things need to be adapted throughout that then I can adapt.
“I can beat this guy going forward, I can beat him going backward, I can beat him orthodox, I can beat him southpaw... Whether I’ll have to use all of those tools to win this fight has yet to be seen but I have them there, I’ve worked on them throughout camp and when you have such a repertoire you can pick and choose when you need to use something and change it when you need to and, in the heat of the moment, I’m able to change up.
“Whether I need to use all my attributes or just a few, we’ll see come fight night.”
