‘I was ready to go home the other day’ – ‘Pissed off’ TJ Doheny was ready to pull out of massive Conlan fight
TJ Doheny [22(16)-2(0)] is ‘not happy ‘ and revealed he was close to pulling out his massive fight with Michael Conlan [15(8)-0] over the weekend.
‘The Power’ piped up at the final press conference in Belfast on Tuesday expressing his anger at the fact the fight was being billed as a WBA super featherweight interim fight.
The Portlaoise native argued he had agreed to fight at 122lbs, the super bantamweight limit, while Conlan was adamant a 124lbs catchweight had to be agreed.
It prompted a verbal exchange during press proceedings and speaking to Boxing News TV after he had climbed down off the stage the former world champion was still upset.
“This fight has been agreed upon three months ago, at super bantamweight, which is 122lbs, over 10 rounds.
“I’ve been very professional in my approach I’ve been over in training camp in America. I’ve changed my body composition to put myself in the super bantamweight division, and I turn up here Sunday and find out the fights at 124.,” he said before suggesting he was close to going home.
“I’ve been in touch with my team, my manager, I was ready to go home the other day, they said ‘no, look we are going to try work something out,” so as it stands it’s still up in the air.”
💥 Things got heated at the press conference between @mickconlan11 & @TjDoheny
— Conlan Boxing (@ConlanBoxing) August 4, 2021
🥊 DO NOT MISS the Weigh In tomorrow
▪️12 PM
📍@TheDevenish pic.twitter.com/AnSGYeI2LL
World Amateur Championship gold and Olympic bronze medal winner, Conlan was adamant the catchweight had been agreed and suggested the Australian-based American trained fighter’s outburst was proof he had lost his bottle.
In response Doheny said, “in terms of him saying I’ve no balls, and looking for a way out of the fight – I don’t want a way out of the fight but what I’ve done here is change my body composition. If I was gonna’ fight at 124 I would have kept my mussel mass on, I would have kept more body fat on, I would have made myself that little bit stronger a fighter to fill into the featherweight division.”
Doheny also claimed he wasn’t aware the WBA interim world title would be on the line at the Falls Park on Friday night pr the fact he had been a WBA world ranking at featherweight.
“I wasn’t aware of any of that, I’m now ranked in the WBA and the interim title fight, I only found out last night, when someone sent me a screenshot. I think the whole thing is a bit of a shambles. The way they do things it’s very unprofessional. All of this could have been done a lot easier and it’s all after coming out here at the press conference I’m a little bit pissed off, to be honest.”
