Random thoughts: Wood-Conlan was a great fight between guys easy to root for
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Some random boxing thoughts…
I am still pretty excited about the Leigh Wood-Michael Conlan featherweight title bout that took place on Saturday. I’ve watched it back a couple of times and it was fantastic. It is an obvious candidate for fight and knockout of the year. From start to the incredibly dramatic finish it was a joy to watch these men give it their absolute all. Like everybody, I was concerned for Conlan when he was knocked out of the ring with 95 seconds left in the 12th round. Thankfully, he is OK.
There was great sportsmanship from both in the aftermath — including (as pictured above) a friendly get together the day after the fight) — and I appreciated that Wood stopped celebrating the knockout once he and his team realized the distress Conlan was in. That was classy. Both of them are very easy to root for.
I have watched probably tens of thousands of fights in my life and the ending was unlike anything I have ever seen. It ranks up there with some great comebacks in boxing history: Julio Cesar Chavez stopping Meldrick Taylor with two seconds left to unify junior welterweight titles, Arturo Gatti’s comebacks against Wilson Rodriguez and Gabriel Ruelas to retain his junior lightweight belt and two fights that I covered at ringside — Diego Corrales’ miraculous 10th-round comeback from two knockdowns to stop Jose Luis Castillo in their first fight (the best fight I’ve ever seen) to unify lightweight titles and Carl Froch saving his super middleweight title by knocking out Jermain Taylor with 14 seconds left — to name a few. What sets Wood-Conlan apart was Wood finishing with a final-round knockout out of nowhere that sent Conlan clear out of the ring for as emphatic a reversal of fortunate as was possible.