

Boxing statistics outlet CompuBox have released punch stats for Michael Conlan’s Olympic quarter final loss today.

The Belfast bantamweight was controversially defeated by Russian Vladimir Nikitin in Rio, and the compiled punch stats seem to support this view.

Conlan threw more than his Russian opponent throughout the fight, firing off 365 shots as opposed to Nikitin’s 257. Conlan landed 89 (24.4%) of these in comparison to Nikitin’s 75 (29.2%). Conlan also threw and landed the greater number of power shots throughout the bout, with 82 of 275 (29.8%) non-jabs landing compared to his opponent’s 71 of 231 (30.7%).

Compubox somewhat supports the view that Nikitin won the opening round, with them tallying Nikitin as having landed 26 of 72 (36.1%) punches in comparison to Conlan’s 18 of 114 (15.8%). However it should probably be noted that Conlan fought mainly off the backfoot in the opener, with the Clonard stylist throwing a lot (41) of jabs, with just 2 being counted by the aggregator. Indeed such is Olympic boxing, with larger gloves, jabs to the head are hard to count in the traditional sense as they are invariably caught somewhat, perhaps only slightly, by the glove.

Conlan’s aggressive performance in the second is reflected in the numbers which have him landing 37 of 99 (37.4%) power shots, compared to Nikitin’s 26 of 88 (29.5%).

The final round also seemed to favour the Irishman with Conlan landing 31 of 126 (24.6%) in contrast to the Russian’s 21 of 87 (24.1%).

In conclusion CompuBox mused that “perhaps it was Nikitin’s ability to draw Conlan into his preferred brawling style that may have tipped the scale, but numerically speaking the Irishman should have prevailed.

Dissect the full punch-stats below: