Boxing Challenge: Conlan, McGregor win in Belfast

    Belfast, Northern Ireland was the site for two lower-weight battles that showed two fighters that are ready to test themselves at a higher level of competition after wins over their best foes to date.

In the main event, former Irish Olympian Michael Conlan won a unanimous decision over former IBF junior featherweight champion T.J. Doheny.

It was a workmanlike performance from Conlan, who scored the only knockdown with a fourth-round body shot, but not a spectacular one in winning a WBA minor title.

Conlan was able to bust up Doheny around the eyes with swelling and while Doheny was aggressively trying to land punches, he simply didn't land enough to worry Conlan, who won on scores of 119-108 and two cards of 116-111, which gave more credit to Doheny than I did in scoring it 118-109 for Conlan.

For Conlan, it does give him a minor WBA title, but the WBA champion Leo Santa Cruz hasn't fought in the division in two and a half years and counting and fights for PBC to make that fight unlikely.

WBC champion Gary Russell fights once a year against his mandatory, which Conlan won't be due his worthless WBA title, the other newly crowned WBA minor beltholder Leigh Wood would make sense as would today's winner of the vacant IBF title fight between Kid Galahad and James Dickens but all three of those fighters are promoted by Matchroom

Conlan's best option may be fellow Top Rank promotee, Emanuel Navarette, for his WBO title, but I don't like Conlan's chances in that fight either.

I think Conlan could win a title depending on the champion that he challenges but it also wouldn't surprise me to see him as a Rocky Juarez type- good enough to be a top ten fighter but not good enough to be elite.

In the co-feature, two former amateur stars risked their undefeated records in the bantamweight division as England's Lee McGregor faced France's Vincent LeGrand.

McGregor was slightly favored as the naturally bigger man with LeGrand moving up from flyweight for the fight but it was LeGrand scoring the first knockdown with a second-round combination that seemed to surprise McGregor.

After three rounds, Legrand had built a four-point lead on my card (30-26) and seemed to be controlling the fighter against the larger man.

Then in the final minute of the fourth round, McGregor landed a left hook to LeGrand's body.

LeGrand dropped to a knee, took the ten count after spitting his mouthpiece out and the fight was over.

Body shots are tough to take and you never really know how much a fighter has been deflated from one but it sure didn't appear that LeGrand gave a lot of thought to even trying to continue.

For McGregor, it's a solid win over an undefeated fighter with a strong amateur background but losing the first three rounds and maybe even the fourth up until the conclusion against a smaller fighter does cause a little concern when McGregor starts to fight contenders of his own size.

In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica and I each scored three points to move the total to 103-93.