BRIGHTON – The stakes had arguably never been higher for Belfast, Northern Ireland’s Michael Conlan inside the Brighton Centre on the south coast of England. Though he’d fought in grander arenas for greater rewards, and against considerably better opposition than India’s Asad Asif Khan, this was arguably the first time he’d entered a contest with his future in boxing so in danger.

His outlook remains uncertain, despite securing his first victory since 2022 thanks to referee Bob Williams scoring him the 78-74 winner, because Conlan, 19-3 (9 KOs), looked a long way from his best.

Tipped to reach the very top after emerging from the 2016 Olympics with a silver medal he believed should have been gold, Conlan’s progress was thwarted by Leigh Wood in the last round of a 2022 thriller and then reversed during subsequent stoppage defeats to Luis Alberto Lopez and Jordan Gill the following year. 

In fact, the nature of that most recent loss – a violent and largely one-sided upset within seven rounds – left Conlan considering retirement. Had that announcement followed, it’s doubtful anyone would have urged him to reconsider. After all, such dips in form are rarely reversed, particularly when the fighter experiencing them is in their mid-thirties, but Conlan found support in the form of trainer Grant Smith and opted to go again.

Conlan started the fight with obvious purpose yet the answers he really wanted – about his place in the sport – were evasive as his punches were forced and too frequently inaccurate. In turn, Khan’s sporadic counter attacks threatened to pose more questions.

The Irishman improved in the third as he forced Khan to the edges of the ring and let fly with blows upstairs and down. Khan proved stubborn enough throughout the first half of their scheduled eight, however. 

Conlan planted his feet in the fifth and crafted a three-punch combination only for each shot to be blocked. Khan circled to his right, then his left, occasionally stopping to score with uppercuts and hooks on the inside. The presumption was that the activity and forward motion of Conlan was doing enough to bank rounds but, even so, after six of them he was struggling to dominate.

Khan’s confidence was growing. By the seventh he was getting off first, his jab landing regularly and his shuffling approach proving tricky for Conlan to time. At the bell, and with only one round to go, frustration was etched all over the favorite’s face.

Khan was again the busier in the last and, so pleased was he with his own efforts, he found the time between his zealous but crude attacks to throw his arms into the air. Those celebrations proved premature. Conlan had got the victory he needed and in truth just about deserved. But Spain’s Cristobal Lorente, the European featherweight champion then presented to the crowd as Conlan’s next opponent, will draw only confidence from what he witnessed.

On the undercard, George Groves-trained cruiserweight prospect Lucas Roehrig got six rounds under his belt for the first time, winning all of them and claiming a 60-53 points win over the resilient Camilo Castagno. 

The broad and muscled Londoner, from Notting Hill and now 3-0 (2 KOs), established his long jab early and Castagno looked to hold only to find his opponent in no mood to reciprocate. Roehrig, 3-0 (3 KOs), stepped to his right and from the same side bulleted a shot into the tattooed ribcage of the suddenly winded Argentinian.

The one-sided action intensified in the second. Blood dribbled from a cut atop the nose of Castagno, grumbles of legal body blows being low fell from his mouth and a look of disillusionment spread across his face. 

An audible groan followed a blow to the belt in the third and Castano, 4-10 (1 KO), was granted time to recover from referee Bob Williams. He took as much of it as he could get away with to survive the round and then toyed with defeat throughout the next. Breathing hard in Round 5, and with his right eyebrow starting to swell, Castagno crumpled to the floor after taking more shots downstairs. Complaining they were low, only to jump to his feet in disgust when Williams started the count, he was again given time to regain his breath in a curious display of mercy from the referee. But Castagno bravely lasted the course as Roehrig, caught by a meaty right himself in the dying moments, seemed to slightly tire in the last round.

Birtley, England’s Dan Toward, trained by Dave Coldwell, was the victim of a notable upset when Uganda’s Kakande Muzmiru scored a one-punch KO in Round 5 of their junior middleweight contest. 

Formerly of Team Great Britain, southpaw Toward exhibited his education by staying tall, keeping his left mitt high, and using a firm and considered jab to keep the bustling African at bay throughout the opening 12 minutes.

The pattern seemed so set and Toward so comfortable that it came as quite the surprise when Muzimiru bowled over a right hand that landed flush on the favourite’s jaw in the fifth. Towland initially seemed to have withstood the blow, before the shock made its way down his body, stealing his legs, and he toppled backwards to be counted out at 1:52. Toward drops to 5-1 (4 KOs) while Muzmiru improves to 9-1-1 (6 KOs).

The well-regarded Tom Welland, a featherweight from Wickford, England, continues to improve at haste. The 25-year-old, 8-0 (5 KOs), tore after the ballsy but outclassed Ally B Lubanja from the opening bell and soon found a home for both of his hands on the head and gut of the Tanzanian. 

Welland, a rapid-fire pressure fighter, continued to attack through the second and third round before taking specific aim at Lubanja’s midsection in the next. There was only so much the visitor could take and he was already grimacing and threatening to fold in half at the waist when the defining raid began. A looping left plunged into the belly, a right, left, and final right followed, and Lubjana, 5-2-2, sank to the mat with the air of a man who’d had quite enough. It was impossible to blame him, frankly, when he stayed down for the referee’s full count. It was all over at 1:51 of Round 4.

In a light heavyweight vehicle for Torbay’s Ben Andrews, Brighton’s Navid Iran appeared to relish repeated thumps to his face during the first two rounds. Iran’s smile and truly dreadful defense were exposed in the third, however. With Iran intent on proving his toughness by meeting every blow with his chin, Andrews loaded up on a right that sent his rival spinning to the ropes and onto his knees. Iran, 10-6-1 (1 KO), got up before his legs were ready to support him and the referee accepted the towel at 22 seconds of the stanza. Andrews is now 5-0 (1 KO).

London lightweight JP O’Meara improved to 5-0, and delighted his vociferous supporters, when he decisioned Brighton’s Mark Butler, 3-17 (1 KO), over four. Sharp blows thudded into the local journeyman from the opening round and a left hand to the temple, hurled in close, briefly wobbled Butler in the second. But to his credit the underdog showed ambition to fight back during the final two sessions before O’Meara finished strongly, hurting his foe with a snazzy left hook to the stomach in the closing seconds. The score was 39-37 in O’Meara’s favor.