Take that, Putin: Michael Conlan signs with Top Rank one month after famous post-fight meltdown

Michael Conlan is perhaps best known for a tweet he sent to Russian president Vladimir Putin, but Top Rank CEO Bob Arum and president Todd duBoef are convinced bigger things are ahead.

Top Rank on Monday signed Conlan, the Irishman who was controversially eliminated from the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro by Russian Vladimir Nikitin.

Conlan, 24, has a huge following in Ireland, but duBoef said he plans to have Conlan campaign mostly in the U.S.

“To me, coming out of the Olympics, he was the story,” duBoef said. “A, he’s got a lot of personality as well as a country and a whole region behind him, both Ireland and England. There are a lot of people there who know him and are already fans of his. And B, there is a huge Irish population in the U.S.

“Our pitch to them was, ‘Let’s turn the business model upside down. Let’s lead with America and we know we’ll have Ireland and England with us.’ But if we start him and build him here, this is where the real money is.”

Conlan has a very professional style and was a bronze medal winner in 2012 in London. He stayed amateur so he could make a run at gold in 2016.

After an impressive opening win, he was impressive again during his quarterfinal fight in the bantamweight division with Nikitin.

Inexplicably, the judges scored the bout for Nikitin, who was so beaten up that he was unable to fight American Shakur Stevenson in the semifinals.

Conlan, who has the Olympic logo tattooed on his right side, gave a double middle-finger salute to the judges before leaving the ring. AIBA, the International Boxing Association, suspended the judges who worked that bout for the remainder of the Olympics.

Conlan ranted to the media post-fight and later sent a tweet to Putin in which he asked, “How much did they charge you bro?”

That tweet made it a world-wide story, and Conlan was chuckling about it on Monday.

“Putin didn’t tweet back, but I got a lot of Russian people giving me [the business],” Conlan said. “It was nothing I couldn’t handle.”

Conlan said he chose Top Rank because of its long track record and because of its success with fighters coming out of the Olympics.

Notably, Top Rank had great success with Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather following the Olympics, but from its 2012 class, super featherweight Vasyl Lomachenko and featherweight Oscar Valdez already have won world titles.

“It’s pretty obvious they’ve done an unbelievable job,” said Conlan, who expects to debut in 2017 on St. Patrick’s Day. “They’ve had so many greats and it’s pretty obvious they’re the best team for the worldwide audience.”

DuBoef noted Conlan’s height – he is 5-8 – and said he thinks that down the road, he’ll be a lightweight. He compared Conlan to Erik Morales, one of the most successful fighters of the previous decade who had titles at 122, 126, 130 and 140 pounds.

Arum said he’s excited by Conlan’s potential in the ring, but also by his willingness to speak his mind.

“Coming from a guy who sometimes gets in trouble for saying what he believes, this is a guy who speaks his mind and says what he believes,” Arum said. “And I like that. I like that a lot. You have to speak the truth sometimes.

“He’s a big kid with a style people are going to love to watch, and he’s already pretty advanced.”