Michael Conlan lands IBF title fight with Luis Lopez and calls for featherweight series
Irish featherweight star Michael Conlan said he would happily enter a Super Series in a bid to decide who is the best in the division.
Conlan takes on IBF champion Luis Lopez at the SSE Arena in Belfast on May 27 but the packed division includes Josh Warrington, Leigh Wood and Mauricio Lara, who may rematch on the same night at another venue.
“It’s a division that is perfect for a Super Series,” said Conlan. “I think that would be fantastic if that was to happen, for all of us. Even after these fights, that could still happen and if some promoters would work together, reach out and get it done, I 100 per cent would sign up to it, because the fights to be made are fantastic, the clash of styles are fantastic… There are punchers, there are great boxers, there’s people with massive fitness, so there’s loads of little mixes in the division where every fighter would clash and make a great fight.”
Conlan, a two-time Olympian, is a student of the sport and he has been watching his rivals with interest. Lara has defeated Warrington and Wood, stopping both and sharing a no contest with Warrington in their anti-climactic rematch and Conlan has been impressed by him.
“He [Lara]’s very hittable, very flat-footed, and if you stick to your gameplan and be disciplined, he’s very beatable, but one thing about him is he’s a ferocious puncher,” Conlan explained. “I would say he’s the biggest puncher in the featherweight division and he’s shown that time and again but he has a style that would suit me down to the ground and it’s a fight I would relish. Who knows, after I beat Lopez, that could be a massive unification fight.”
Lara could fight Wood again next, though Warrington wants the Mexican again, particularly after Lara spat at him as Warrington neared the ring in the aftermath of Lara’s victory over Wood. Conlan could not condone the spitting, even if he rates Lara as a fighter.
“It’s disrespectful in my opinion,” Conlan added. “Spitting is one of the worst things you can do to degrade someone and put them down. I remember when I lost in the Olympics, I was walking by the judges and even in the heat of that moment I wasn’t going to stop and spit on them but I knew if I did that, that would probably be the lowest I could go and I wasn’t lowering myself to that level. But he [Lara] just seems like a crazy Mexican cowboy. He wants all the smoke. He was ready to go there and then, even though he’d just won the world title his focus was on Josh Warrington, which is crazy.”
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