By: Sean Crose
“There’s a world title in me,” popular Irish boxer Michael Conlan recently told the Irish Times. “I know there is and the team I’m with now, the surroundings I have, I’m in the right place at the right time.” The featherweight has been a fan favorite on both sides of the Atlantic, yet he’s never worn a world title. What’s more he lost two fights in a row back in 2023 in destructive fashion. The man has fought once since then, a decision win over Asad Khan last March. Now the thirty three year old is determined to get back onto the title track. On September 5th he’ll be facing the 20-1-1 Jack Bateson in Dublin.
“This is the happiest and the best I’ve been in camp in a very long time, and I’m very, very happy,” Conlan continued. “I’m in a great place and I’m very excited. I think it’s going to be an unbelievable night in Dublin and I just feel free, I feel loose and ready to rock.” Indeed, the man is truly coming across as confident. “I’m an animal,” he said, “and I’ve sparred better than I’ve sparred in a long time, so everything’s on track, I’m ready.”
Suffice to say Conlan knows there’s a whole lot riding on this fight. “I’ve been ripped to shreds,” he told the Irish Times. “I’ve been in training camp for 12 weeks for this fight because I know it’s a fight I have to win and it’s his big fight, his big chance, and he’s going to come in there and try and do a job. I’m excited for that.” Not that he has anything particularly against his next opponent. “I like Jack Bateson,” Conlan said. “He’s a nice guy. If he wasn’t fighting me, I’d be his mate. He’s a family man. He’s from a boxing family and I have a lot of respect for him but I’m going to fight him and I have to beat him.”
An interesting thing about Conlan is the fact that, whether he’s at the Olympics or in an interview before a professional fight, he’s honest about what he thinks. “I haven’t lost the love for what I’m doing, or how I’m doing it because I have a goal in mind and that’s what I want,” he said. “Do I love the business of boxing and how boxing is? No, it’s a dirty game, it’s a rotten game and people get really hurt in the game so you can’t love boxing.”
