VIDEO: Golden boy Michael Conlan on top of the world after historic victory

Michael Conlan claimed you can call him ‘Mystic Mick’ or the ‘Conor McGregor of boxing’ when it comes to successful predictions, but ‘champion of the world’ would be a more appropriate sobriquet this morning after he last night became the first Irishman to claim world championship gold.

The 23-year-old Belfast bantamweight was ecstatic after his win, although slightl embarrassed after a final-round knockdown at the hands of Uzbek Murodjon Akhmadaliev.

That emotion was understandable if slightly different to the terror which surely struck Conlan’s friends, family and supporters watching live on TV, while a stunned hush descended on the previously vocal crowd of Irish ex-pats in the Ali Bin Hamad Al Attiya Arena.