By Thomas Gerbasi
Two-time Olympian Michael Conlan may be living in Los Angeles and sporting a U.S. cell phone number now, but don’t start fitting him for red, white and blue trunks just yet.
He’s still a proud Irishman, and that won’t ever change, a reality that has endeared him to the folks back home, who supported his move to the States to pursue a professional boxing career that continues on Friday night in Chicago against Alfredo Chanez.
Simply put, business is business, and the 25-year-old is all about focusing on the work it will take to bring him to a world championship.
“I don’t feel I’ve had to adjust much,” he said of life in Southern California. “It feels normal. Just being away from my own people and my own community would be the biggest thing, but nothing major.”
Just one fight into Conlan’s pro career, it’s too early to wonder if training under the sunny skies will become the equivalent of Marvin Hagler’s “It’s hard to do roadwork when you’re sleeping in silk pajamas” line, but given where he came from, it’s unlikely that he will lose that edge that he believes he was born with.
“Most of the top fighters in Ireland came from Belfast and that’s where I’m from,” he said. “It’s somewhere where you’re born to be a fighter. It gives you this awareness of place and what’s going on in the world, and your eyes are opened when you’re at home.”
Mention conflicts of the modern era, and Northern Ireland’s troubles has to be a prominent part of the list. As Irishmen clashed against one another for decades, it forced a generation of youngsters to grow up faster than they should have and made everyday life a risky endeavor at the best of times. Yet what may be horrifying for those looking from the outside is often routine for those in the midst of it.
“It was just natural,” Conlan said. “You were born in it. When I was born, the peace process kind of started, so that was starting to fade away, but there was still an awful lot of trouble, and it was something you’d see every day.”
And if he didn’t have to dodge fights or worse on a daily basis, there were still reminders of what happened in years past by way of the murals that decorated Belfast. But this is where the story changes for the 2012 Olympic bronze medalist, who made international news after his controversial decision loss to Russia’s Vladimir Nikitin in the 2016 Games.
Today, there are several murals of Conlan in his hometown, perhaps signaling a change for the city.
“There’s three up at the minute,” he said. “Most murals in Belfast are either of dead soldiers or political murals. It’s crazy, but when I seen them up for me, I was shocked. I thought you had to be dead to be on these things. It’s a complete honor, and hopefully I’m gonna inspire the next generation.”
Maybe the hashtag his promoter, Top Rank, is putting out - #TheConlanRevolution – to advance this week’s fight isn’t just slick marketing. And in talking to Conlan, you find a young man who used boxing to escape the pitfalls of the streets and is now using it for more than fame and glory. Just talk with him about the Irish fighters making noise in boxing and mixed martial arts – Carl Frampton, Conor McGregor, Katie Taylor – and mention Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and he will correct you and say, “We’re all Irish.” And that’s where his real goal lies.
“That’s my main aim,” he said. “I think everybody in Ireland is Irish, and I’m Irish. That’s something I’m proud to be and I hope one day everybody else sees it as that. Most of rest of the world sees it, but at home, it’s a complicated subject, so some people don’t and some people do.”
But change for the better never comes without a fight. And Conlan is ready to put up his dukes.
“I’m an honest person and I just want to be great for my country, which is Ireland,” he said. “Being a fighter, it’s very easy to be honest and humble about it because you’re doing it for everybody and not just doing it for yourself.”
