{"id":57701,"date":"2026-03-21T01:45:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T05:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/sport\/michael-conlan-suffers-shock-split-decision-defeat-to-kevin-walsh-in-his-belfast-hometown-boxing-news\/21\/03\/2026\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T01:45:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T05:45:28","slug":"michael-conlan-suffers-shock-split-decision-defeat-to-kevin-walsh-in-his-belfast-hometown-boxing-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/sport\/michael-conlan-suffers-shock-split-decision-defeat-to-kevin-walsh-in-his-belfast-hometown-boxing-news\/21\/03\/2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Conlan suffers shock split-decision defeat to Kevin Walsh in his Belfast hometown | Boxing News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<\/p>\n<div data-component-name=\"ui-article-body\" data-testid=\"article-body\" data-highlight-intro=\"true\">\n<p>Michael Conlan suffered an upset defeat in his Belfast hometown when he succumbed on a split decision to Kevin Walsh.<\/p>\n<p>Conlan, a two-time Olympian and London 2012 bronze medallist, still harboured ambitions of a world title fight after Walsh.<\/p>\n<p>But he suffered a points loss at the SSE Arena in Belfast.<\/p>\n<p>One judge had Conlan winning their 10-rounder 97-93 but the other two officials both scored 96-94 for Walsh.<\/p>\n<p>Unbeaten American Walsh, from Brockton, Massachusetts, rose to the occasion to secure the best victory of his career so far.<\/p>\n<div class=\"sdc-article-widget sdc-article-image\" data-testid=\"article-image\">\n<figure class=\"sdc-article-image__figure\">\n<div class=\"sdc-article-image__wrapper\" data-aspect-ratio=\"16\/9\"><\/div><figcaption class=\"ui-media-caption\" data-testid=\"article-image-caption\">\n        <span class=\"u-hide-visually\">Image:<\/span><br \/>\n        <span class=\"ui-media-caption__caption-text\" data-testid=\"article-image-caption-text\">Kevin Walsh celebrates his unlikely victory.<br \/>\n        <\/span><br \/>\n      <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>&#8220;It was a close fight,&#8221; Walsh said. &#8220;But I got it done.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Conlan turned professional in a blaze of publicity and did fight his way into world class. His extraordinary clash with Leigh Wood in 2022 ended in a knockout defeat.<\/p>\n<p>In 2023 he challenged Luis Alberto Lopez for the IBF featherweight world title but also lost by stoppage. An upset loss to Jordan Gill back in 2023 as well was a heavy blow to his career.<\/p>\n<p>He was rebuilding, impressing with last year&#8217;s knockout victory over Jack Bateson for instance.<\/p>\n<p>But this latest defeat is a major setback. Rather than pressing for a world title shot, now the 34-year-old might have to consider his future in the sport.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.skysports.com\/boxing\/news\/12040\/13522453\/michael-conlan-suffers-shock-split-decision-defeat-to-kevin-walsh-in-his-belfast-hometown\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Conlan suffered an upset defeat in his Belfast hometown when he succumbed on a split decision to Kevin Walsh. Conlan, a<br \/><button class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/sport\/michael-conlan-suffers-shock-split-decision-defeat-to-kevin-walsh-in-his-belfast-hometown-boxing-news\/21\/03\/2026\/\">Read More &rsaquo;<\/a><\/button><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":57702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[213],"tags":[4495,354,7774,1241,1691,1402,722,33,1871,7775,666,1701],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/e0.365dm.com\/26\/03\/1600x900\/skysports-michael-conlan-kevin-walsh_7198821.jpg?20260320235012","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57701"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57701"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57703,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57701\/revisions\/57703"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}