The Rocky films come somewhere near the top of the list when John Joe Nevin recounts his favourite movies. And by some twist of fate, the Olympic Silver medalist is now under the umbrella of Philadelphia-based management company GreenBlood, spending time in the city with which the Rocky Balboa character is most associated with and where he famously ran up those steps.
Although he will spend the weeks leading up to fights in Philly, Nevin intends to spends most of his time on Irish soil as he told Off The Ball last night.
Yet in every other aspect of his career, he is not standing still. He told Joe that he needed to move on from the amateur scene.
"It's been a brilliant amateur career for me. I went out with a smile on my face and won every medal so there wasn't much to go after," said Nevin.
Ireland's John Joe Nevin with his gold medal at the European Championships ©INPHO/Cathal Noonan
"People have asked me if I regret not going to the World Championships [in Kazakhstan]. I don't regret it because the buzz is gone out of it now for me. I've won medal after medal and got everything I want. But the lads are doing tremendous over there. I miss the team obviously but I'm signing with GreenBlood which has three other Irish fighters so we've got our own mini High Performance team out there."
Nevin nearly joined the professional ranks almost a year earlier when Amir Khan's promotion company Super Fight. However he ended up pulling out of that deal. He explained his reasoning behind that decision.
"It was a great deal. But I just decided 10 more months wouldn't be too bad and to get any medal at the European Championships. I got the gold and thankfully the best boxer of the whole competition. It put the icing on the cake for me to go out of the amateur ranks," said Nevin.
He wants to emulate Muhammad Ali and fight at Croke Park and he has his eye on taking on his friend Luke Campbell who also happens to be the British fighter who beat him in the Olympic final.
Listen to the full interview below or download the podcast on iTunes.
©INPHO/Donall Farmer
