COMMONWEALTH Games bronze medallist Connor Coyle has decided to turn his back on the amateur game after failing to realise his dream of reaching this summer’s Olympic Games in Rio.
The Derry middleweight is considering three offers to turn over to the paid ranks – one in Ireland, one in England and one in America – and will make a decision on his future in the coming weeks.
After medalling at the 2014 Commonwealths in Glasgow, Coyle was determined to write the final chapter of his amateur career beneath the sunny skies in Brazil, but it wasn’t to be.
Despite a hectic 12-week training regime before last November’s Irish Elite Championships, Coyle fell at the first hurdle, suffering a shock defeat to Newry teenager Conor Wallace.
“It was just a bad night – I just didn’t perform,” recalls Coyle, a two-time Ulster senior champion.
“I was expecting a completely different fight, but he just stayed on his toes and ran the whole three rounds. Any time I tried to get close, he’d just run, run, run, run.
“Before I could click my fingers, it seemed the rounds were over. Three rounds should have been enough to take him down but I wasn’t thinking clearly. Nothing came to me.
“Before I knew it the fight was over and I just looked over at my coaches and shrugged my shoulders like ‘Jesus, what happened?’”
It was Coyle’s first competitive fight in nine months, and he admits tall, tricky southpaw Wallace wasn’t the ideal opponent to return against.
“Oh aye, I thought it was going to be an easy one,” he admitted when asked if he had looked past his younger opponent.
“I had a completely different fight drawn out in my head. It wasn’t the kind of fight you’d have wanted after not fighting for a while – you’d have wanted a good war to get rid of the rust.”
With all that behind him though, the 25-year-old is looking to the future.
He has a week’s sparring lined up with Anthony Fitzgerald ahead of the Dub’s February 6 showdown with Sam Wall at the National Stadium.
After that, Coyle admits he will be “travelling about a bit” as he weighs up his options in the pro game, where he is likely to feature at either middle or super-middleweight.
“A lot of people would have said to me that I’m more suited to the pro game. I like to sit down on my punches and pick my punches and the amateurs was maybe a bit too fast for me.
“I didn’t do too bad, but I’d like to have done a lot more. I didn’t get out of it what I expected to get out of it.
“My goal was to reach the Olympics, that was my only reason to stay amateur – to try and get to Rio. That didn’t happen and I’m 25 now, so I think it’s the time to move.
“There’s interest there in Dublin, England and in America so I’ll have to see what happens.
“I want to stay in the UK for maybe a year or so, just to get my name out and about, build the profile a bit. That’s what’s in my immediate future I think, but long-term I’d like to move to the States.
“I never wanted to stay here to box – I’ve always had it in my head that I’d like to move away and the main place in my mind was always America.”
