Nevin facing enormous task
He faces an enormous task. The Russian is a former European junior champion and world junior silver medallist and replaces their representative who went out early in Beijing last year and has subsequently moved up a division to featherweight.
“John Joe is in good form,” Irish head coach, Billy Walsh, said. “He is very, very happy. He is just 20 years of age and is already a world medallist. He is coming to terms with that and he is going around with a smile on his face.
“Last night we relaxed. All the team went go-carting this morning but he didn’t. We could not risk John Joe getting involved in something like that afraid he would get injured or anything.”
Since his tactical demolition of Yu Gu of China, the Cavan ABC boxer has been the centre of much speculation and coach Billy Walsh is not surprised.
“John Joe boxed exceptionally well,” said. “This was a very tactical fight. Both boxers moved around a lot early on and it was evident from the outset that the one who was going to concede a score was the one who was going to lose.
“John Joe was brilliant. He did everything you could have asked of him.
“He had to be calm and he had to be patient. That was the plan we had. We edged forward and made sure that if anyone was going to get cautioned or get a warning for not fighting, it was not going to be John Joe.
“As it turned out Gu got the warning and that gave us a bit of a lead which turned out to be vital.
“This guy was a carbon copy of John Joe. It was like looking in a mirror. He is a counter puncher and he moved all the time so John Joe had to get him to come forward because if he was the one chasing his man he was going to be under pressure.
“It was a very mature performance from a very young boxer. John Joe had a rocky start to the season. He was chasing wins all the time – thinking about the outcome rather than thinking about the process and that step by step approach which is vital.
“He went to the EU championships and beat the European champion. Then in the final he got caught by the German and that was a bit of a shock to the system. It was complacency.
“He did not have a great training camp leading up to those championships.
“He was put on his backside one day so we took him out of the main sparring and got him some easy spars to build up his confidence again.
“We built up his confidence and gradually brought him back into competition. When he got a win under his belt here in Milan he blossomed from then on.”
His opponent for today’s semi-finals is Russia’s new kid on the block but, while they have not seen him before this tournament, Walsh and his backroom team will be familiar with his every move.
That’s thanks to the work of Bantry man, Alan Swanton, who works out of the NCTC in Limerick. His job is to record every fight and every move and then present the complete package, along with the statistics, to the team for analysis.
“We looked at Abzalimov this morning,” Billy Walsh said. “He is quite good. He is orthodox and he can fight backwards or forwards so he is going to be in front of you and, as a result of that, he can be hit. He has fast hands and a good defence.
“But, let’s face it, any boxer at this level is world class.”
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