By: Sean Crose
Featherweight champion Michael Conlan will return to the ring this Saturday at the SSE Arena in Belfast to take on Miguel Marriaga in a scheduled twelve round. This was an important battle for Conlan, whose final battle ended in a brutal but memorable defeat to Leigh Wood’s gloved fists. After the match, the Irishman was in the rare position of being recognized for his excellent defeat. The fact that the man fought so well and too hard to be eliminated by the knockout round ended him up. And so the 16-1 boxer slides back between the strings this weekend to face veteran Marriaga in front of his hometown Belfast crowd. It might just be what the doctor figuratively ordered – as long as Marriaga doesn’t get her way.
For, even though he has five losses on his 30-5 resume, Marriaga has mostly lost to a first-rate competitor. While Vasyl Lomachenko, Joet Gonzalez, Nicolas Walters and Oscar Valdez were the best for him, the other 30 men were not. Plus, after losing to Eduardo Ramirez in his final match, the Colombian candidate certainly sees Saturday’s match against Conlan as the chance of a lifetime. On the other hand, Conlan sees Saturday’s game as an opportunity to redeem himself.
“It was more dramatic than what actually happened,” Conlan recently said ESPN about Wood knocking him out by literally kicking him out of the ring when they fought for Wood’s WBA featherweight championship last March. “The medical staff tried to put an oxygen mask on me while my gum goggles were in, and people thought I was dead, and that was stupid. It is not handled well. With all that said, Conlan famously seems to feel things are being handled well this time around. ESPN.
The Conlan-Marriaga Card will air live on ESPN+ Saturday, starting at 2 p.m. ET.
