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 throughout the fight, suggestive of someone who knew what he wanted to do but couldn’t quite execute it.
This frustration then turned to disappointment when Conlan discovered that two of the three ringside judges decided Walsh’s negative, spoiler approach to the fight warranted victory. Suddenly Conlan, now 20-4 (10 KOs), wasn’t just annoyed not to have pinned Walsh down and impressed on his big night. He was a beaten man; beaten, that is, for the fourth time in his professional career.
In many ways, though, it was a gift, this latest defeat. It wasn’t one Conlan deserved – objectively, he did enough to win – but it was perhaps one he needed at this late stage in his career. Because Conlan would have known more than anyone how he felt during that fight on Friday and he would have accepted that no decision in his favour would have been able to erase or mask that feeling or indeed carry him on through to the next one. Even if, in victory, Conlan had continued with his career, and it’s likely he would have done, he would have known, deep down, that the thing he was trying to grab hold of – a world title, his old self – was now sadly beyond his reach. To carry on would have required Conlan keeping a secret and telling a lie, both to himself and to others. He would have had to find comfort in his own delusion all the while knowing the truth.
“I remember listening to the great Alexis Argüello talk about retirement,” said Ireland’s Barry McGuigan, the former WBA featherweight champion who retired at the age of 28. “He said, ‘They say boxers are the last ones to know when it’s time to go – I want to be the first.’
“Those are my sentiments exactly. But I later realised that in actual fact the boxer is the first one to know but the last to admit it to themselves. That’s the truth. Guys know when they have lost the fire in their belly. They may stay in the game for financial reasons. They may hype it up. They might miss the affirmation, and that’s the reason they come back. But they know when they’ve had enough.”
Just as Barry McGuigan knew in 1989, Michael Conlan knew on Friday night in Belfast. If at all in doubt, he need only look at the face of his brother, Jamie, or the faces of those sitting at ringside or waiting for him in his changing room. If in need of further proof, he need only remind himself that he had lost a decision to an opponent who would have been no problem at all for him on his best day.
“I knew when I’d had enough and I thought there was no point trying to rekindle anything,” said McGuigan, whose own career came to an end following a fourth-round stoppage loss (cuts) against Jim McDonnell. “It might come back, but it won’t be the way it was before.
“I wanted to have the same burning desire I had before winning and defending the world title. It wasn’t there, though. I admitted to myself it would never come back and that it was time to get out. I made the right decision.”
Somehow, despite offers to return to the ring, McGuigan managed to buck the trend and stay retired, even flourishing in retirement by carving out a career for himself as a television pundit and promoter. He never ran from boxing, McGuigan. Instead, perhaps because there was no temptation, or because he knew The End meant the end, he was confident enough to stay involved in the game and not worry about the possibility of being dragged back into its suffocating embrace. Better yet, he was able to keep it at arm’s length. He was able to stay vigilant, in control.
As for Conlan, it remains to be seen whether he can now follow the path of Barry McGuigan and keep away. Doing so won’t be easy, it never is, but Conlan appears as well-set as anyone to stay true to his word and do what is best for him. This, after all, is not some rash, emotionally-led decision. It is in fact one Conlan, an intelligent man, has been considering for some time – a card he always knew was in his hand, ready to play.
After losing back-to-back fights against Luis Alberto Lopez and Jordan Gill in 2023, the question of retirement had started to come up, asked not only by journalists and outsiders but those on the inside, too. Conlan himself asked it, his brother asked it, and others close to him asked it. That includes his daughter, who, according to Conlan, cajoled him into continuing by smartly using a phrase he had often used on her: “Are you a quitter or not?”
“If I was done, my own family would tell me,” Conlan said to me 12 months ago, before “comeback” wins against Asad Asif Khan and Jack Bateson. “They would say, ‘Enough is enough.’ My own brother [Jamie] is so close to me and manages me. He would be the one to say, ‘Stop it.’ He doesn’t like to see me fight because we’re brothers and it was the same with me when he was fighting. I didn’t want to see him fight anymore after a certain point. Even when I’ve been winning fights, he has said, ‘I don’t want to see too many more,’ because of how hard the fights can be at times. If he were to say to me, ‘Mick, come on, it’s time to stop, there’s no more here,’ then I would say to him, ‘Sure, no problem.’
“He has said that in an ideal world he doesn’t want to see me go through it anymore, but he also understands my reasons for carrying on and realises I still have something to give. He said, ‘If you want to go again, that’s up to you. I’m not going to force your decision.’ He knows I have a lot left in me and I also have something to prove to myself now. I’m not proving anything to anyone else. It’s just me.”
Back then, before it became a reality, retirement was an elusive, ineffable thing for Conlan. He knew of its threat, and could feel it breathing down his neck, but at the time he still had hope, enough of it to throw back and keep retirement on its heels. His defeats, to that point, were against decent fighters – with a reason or justification for each – and he also knew, within himself, that he had more to give. Or at least that is what he told the world.
“I’m very aware of boxing,” he said. “I understand boxing. I have been around boxing my whole life. It’s something I’ve been very successful in and I’m probably in the one per cent of people who have made enough money from the sport to walk away and be set for life. I don’t need boxing. There are so many other things in life. I started my own promotional company with my brother, and that’s now beginning to flourish and grow massively. So that’s one avenue I can walk into with no problem. I also have my own fucking beer which has been launched. That’s another avenue for me in retirement. Streams of income are plenty for me. It’s not like I’m dependent on boxing for that.
“But it’s not about the money, is it? It’s about proving to myself that I can still achieve something in this sport. Who knows what will happen? Sometimes you can be right and sometimes you can be wrong. But why the fuck am I going to stop trying when I know I still have it in me?”
More impressive than the amateur medals, the iconic middle finger, the pro debut at Madison Square Garden, the big nights in Ireland, and the 20 professional wins is Michael Conlan’s honesty. That has always been the case, right from the very start, and it is something he will require now more than ever.
Because although Conlan may not have got what he wanted on Friday, he did get what he needed. He got both proof of what he is missing and an invitation to leave, something not all fighters are fortunate enough to be granted. In fact, in boxing, you don’t so much get away as get away with it. You receive a sign, you pay attention to it, and you run – straight, fast, never looking back. Only by ignoring the signs does an ending then become sad.
“I didn’t think I lost, but it wasn’t good enough,” said Conlan following Friday’s defeat. “That’s the simple fact. I’m 34 now, probably too long in the tooth. I thought I won, but it is what it is. I don’t want to do it no more. It’s time to say goodbye to boxing.
“No matter whether it was close, or people thought I won, it wasn’t good enough. For me to be a world champion, I need to be beating guys like that and beating them well.”
Just before it starts to get cruel, boxing occasionally extends kindness and compassion towards the fighter mulling over retirement. It takes them by the hand, it points them in the direction of the nearest signposted exit, and it says “Go live your life, feel human again.”
If that’s true, and kindness can exist in a cruel sport, it wasn’t a loss Michael Conlan was handed among friends and family in Belfast on Friday. It was the key to freedom.
