Eddie Hearn believes Michael Conlan will have to consider whether he wants to continue boxing after his defeat to Jordan Gill.
The Irishman fought in Dublin last night but was stopped in the seventh round as he looked in trouble, and the referee called off the fight, with Conlan already down in the second.
Conlan had been aiming to secure a win in order to kick on to another title challenge in the hopes of making it third time lucky, after losses to Leigh Wood and Luis Alberto Lopez.
Speaking on X, formerly known as Twitter, the 32-year-old fighter said he would be taking some time away, leading to speculation he would be considering his future in boxing.
Speaking to Irish-boxing.com, Hearn thought Conlan should indeed think about whether he wanted to continue.
“It’s a fighter’s decision but it’s very difficult to come back from that because this is a guy that wants to challenge for world titles,” he said.
“Now to get beaten again it will be very difficult to come back. You look at the move to 130 and maybe you can say, ‘Maybe my defeats were weight related’, but then he got stopped by Jordan Gill, who isn’t an elite 130 yet. I think he’ll reflect on that and probably think about his future.
“Just before the stoppage, Jamie Conlan stood up and looked at the corner as if to say let’s get the towel ready to go. I saw a bit on social media saying the stoppage was too early, but I don’t think so.
"There were no complaints from the corner or the Conlan team, as a fighter Mick would probably want to go out on the floor rather than his feet, but I think it was the right decision.
“I said in the build up it’s kind of like who has what left. I think you saw a faded Mick Conlan against a very good Jordan Gill who up at 130-pounds looked like a completely different fighter. Michael got caught early and didn’t recover but started to come back into the fight. Still, you always felt like he was capable of getting hurt at any moment.”