Michael Conlan’s heroic homecoming, Julio Cesar Chavez and my mad night in Mr T’s shadow

In early 1993, in front of 132,247 paying fans as well as a thousand police with guns and dogs and every crooked mayor in Mexico, Mr T – wearing floral swimming trunks, flip flops and numerous gold chains – sat next to me to watch the greatest homecoming in sport.

On that night in the ring, the lord of Mexican boxing, Julio Cesar Chavez, was having his 85th fight. He was unbeaten in 84 fights, a world champion for a decade, the subject of a hundred ballads by wayward mariachi bands and the undisputed number one idol in all of Mexico.

Chavez punished the American Greg Haugen for five rounds, left him bloodied and to the mercy of a crowd ready for death. Haugen and his people fled the ring, were hit with vile missiles and then had to sit through a conference of hundreds where he was called an “American dog” by Chavez.

Meanwhile, Mr.T, who like Sylvester Stallone actually believes he won the heavyweight world title, left to rapturous applause under the protection of Don King’s hired hands. Mr.T, fighting as Clubber Lang, ruined a homecoming when he butchered Rocky Balboa at the Spectrum in Philadelphia back in 1982. I walked in Mr.T’s considerable shadow from ringside at the Azteca. Rocky was arguably the last American world champion with an adoring hometown; the best American fighters are homeless heroes, men trying to win attention in the rich boxing centres of Las Vegas and New York, cities with money, a fight-savvy public and a local media.

It is why Las Vegas is such an attraction to professional boxers and why it took until 2013 for the first Las Vegas-born boxer, Ishe Smith, to win a world title.

That long night in Mexico City ended at dawn with the last of the mariachi bands packing away their instruments and leaving the fight hotel. King and Mr.T had ribs for breakfast and then Chavez arrived with hundreds of his entourage. There were new hangers-on, ex-fighters stumbling for hand-outs, other beggars from the street, security police with revolvers and – somehow – even a few more mariachi players. All had a thirst to continue the homecoming party.

On Saturday night in Belfast there was a boxing party that Chavez, King and Mr.T would have loved. A grassy hill in Falls Park, an unlikely green oasis in the city, was transformed and under the distant canopy of the black hills and the direct shadow of ever darkening trees, a neon ring was constructed for the real homecoming of local idol Michael Conlan.

It was a night of national pride, a night of celebration attached to an arts festival and watched by 10,000 people in a bear-pit of a boxing venue which must have sloped thirty feet from end to end. The two opposing corners, in a city that knows a thing or two about opposing corners, were actually separated by 20-feet in distance and 26-inches in height. The ring engineers – in reality one veteran called Mike Goodhall – had created an even surface from the harsh drop with the most delicate of fixtures to secure a perfect canvas for the glorious homecoming.

On the day of the fight, the ring still a long way from flat it, had been reported that Conlan had added a Sherpa to his corner team.

Conlan has grown up in the shadow of the park, playing there as a child, having it as a permanent green reminder of his beloved city whenever he packed his bags to go and fight for Ireland in some forsaken corner of the boxing globe. On the road the kid from the Falls was brilliant: a bronze medal at the London Olympics, a gold at the Commonwealth games in Glasgow, then the rarest of boxing doubles: a gold at the European championships in Russia and a gold at the world championships in Doha, both in 2015.

The glory was set to continue in Rio at the Olympics in 2016 but scandal and shame combined, the judges delivered incompetency, since diagnosed as corruption, and Conlan was out. The disgusting Conlan result, in the quarter finals, is one of the reasons boxing came so close to extinction as an Olympic sport. In Tokyo next year, the AIBA – the organisation previously in charge of administering the Olympic event – was dropped by the IOC. The sport was only granted participation status last month.

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Conlan turned professional in New York in 2017, Conor McGregor dressed in a fur coat walked him to the ring and men in leprechaun outfits played on fiddles. “There is an Irish bar in every city and they will all come out for an Irish boxer,” said Conlan. He was back in New York on St.Patrick’s day this year, drenched in green and vicious in the ring.

A parade in the Falls Road and fight in the Falls Park was put in place. The original opponent was the hated Russian, Vladimir Nikitin the man who beat him in Rio. Nikitin pulled our injured, the tickets continued selling for Mick’s homecoming, extra seats were added and Saturday came. Forget the rain.

First in the ring on Saturday night was the sacrifice from Buenos Aires, Diego Alberto Ruiz, a man with a higher ranking than Conlan, but fighting away from Argentina for the very first time. He looked bemused, perhaps his Sunday school teacher had told him hell was more than just a plane ride away.

It is impossible to imagine what was going through his head as he walked out, got in the ring and had to watch and listen as Conlan entered the pit in the park. Imagine a local party, a very lively party, but instead of a living room packed with thirty people belting out a banger, imagine 10,000 people howling at the sky, crying as they sang the words to Grace, one of Conlan’s choices.

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Poor Diego never stood a chance.

Conlan, in a dark green robe, was majestic, a small fighting king at home in a castle his people built. It finished in the ninth. The party continued. Conlan will be back, a bigger venue will be needed next time.