JAMIE CONLAN TOOK another step closer to a world title fight with a split decision win at the Waterfront in Belfast tonight.
Conlan, who is the older brother of Irish boxing star Michael, was handed top billing to face Yader Cardoza of Nicaragua (22-10-1, 6 KOs) for the vacant WBC Silver International super-featherweight belt.
And the 30-year-old prevailed to keep his unbeaten record intact (now 19-0), but he did it the hard way.
Conlan has a reputation for getting dragged into wars and this was no exception, as the two fighters were left bloodied and bruised after slugging it out for 12 rounds.
Despite starting strongly, he was knocked down in the eighth but recovered to edge out Cardoza — the judges scoring it 112-115, 114-113, 115-113.
“He caught me high on the head so I had to ride the storm,” Conlan told Box Nation.
“This is breakfast, lunch and dinner here. I could do this all week… I don’t want to do it all week though! The crowd were brilliant and the rallied behind me when I needed them.”
Having trained with his younger sibling and Paddy Barnes in Los Angeles for the fight, he will now travel to watch Michael’s professional debut at Madison Square Garden on St Patrick’s Day, and joked:
It’s f***ing snowing in New York and I’m going to be walking around wearing sunglasses like a d***head!”
Barnes, Phil Sutcliffe Jnr, James Tennyson, Tyrone McKenna, Steven Ward, Con Sheehan and Marco McCullough also had wins tonight.
Watch Conlan’s fight in full below:
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All these title belts…seriously!
There are too many organisations and therefore too many world titles in each division. However, you need lower tier titles such as this too to give the younger/less proven fighters a stepping stone. This and the domestic/continental titles are along the lines of an MMA fighter winning a cage warriors title on their way to hopefully winning a UFC world title.
Thanks for the report and upload. Enjoyable watch.
Fair play, what’s the difference between an international and world title?
@Kie Ran: That belt effectively means absolutely nothing however may simply get him a higher ranking with the WBC. They have their world champion as the WBC holder, then comes the WBC silver belt, then the WBC international belt and then comes this one, the WBC international silver belt. Each is merely for ranking points really. Its just bad journalism that the 42 are saying that there is any real relevance to this belt. They even said he was a super featherweight, he is a super flyweight.
Face looks like that after fighting a guy with a 22 fights and 10 losses and only 6 kos. Didnt see the fight but usually such a close points win for the home fighter is dodgy scoring, sspecially as he was knocked out as well.