The stakes are high for Michael Conlan 18-2 (9) when he takes on southpaw Jordan Gill 27-2-1 (8) at the The SSE Arena in Belfast, Ireland this Saturday night, with his own promoter admitting his career is over if he loses.
The 32-year-old from Ireland is looking to rejuvenate his career in the super featherweight division following two knockout losses in world title fights at featherweight.
In March last year Leigh Wood 28-3 (17) recovered from a first-round knockdown to score a come from behind KO of Conlan in the final round of the contest to successfully defend his WBA crown.
After wins over Miguel Marriaga and Karim Guerfi in the back half of last year, Conlan unsuccessfully challenged Luis Alberto Lopez 29-2 (16) for his IBF belt. He was stopped in the fifth round.
The fight against England’s Gill, 29, is a must-win for Conlan and his promoter Eddie Hearn knows it.
“If Michael Conlan loses, his career is over,” the Matchroom Boxing chief said to RTE. “But if he wins and wins well, what’s ahead? Joe Cordina? Josh Warrington? There are massive fights ahead.
“Michael sells. He’s expected to beat Jordan Gill and he’s coming off a knockout defeat, but we should have 7,000 in there on Saturday which is a big old crowd.
“You know he sells, you know the atmosphere will be fantastic and we have a lot of guys at 130-pounds that he can fight. If he was to make a statement he will walk straight into a massive fight.”
But Conlan says he still sees a bright future for himself in the sport, adding that there is something in Gill’s psychological makeup he thinks he can exploit.
“There’s an awful lot of reasons why I know I’ll get him out of there,” said Conlan. “He lacks something. He has quit in him. And that’s it. I’m not going back and saying this happened in sparring, this happened in sparring. Sparring is sparring. Things happen.
“But if you wanted to take confidence from anything, you know, I definitely can. And I’ve seen an awful lot of things throughout that time and even in his performances since that time, I’ve seen an awful lot of things where you go ‘yeah okay, I understand’. I know what I got to do.”
Gill, who is coming off a fourth-round knockout loss to former IBF featherweight titleholder Kiko Martinez 44-12-2 (31) in October last year, is jumping up a weight class too.
He says the move is long overdue and that boiling himself down to the 126-pound weight limit explains some of the subpar performances in his career.
“I should have moved up maybe three or four years ago,” said Gill.
“One fight that highlighted that I have no quit in me is the Guerfi fight. Whether I have to do that again we’ll find out on Saturday. I’m really excited and ready to go. All of the pressure is on him. He’s the star of the show. I’m just the opponent.”