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Michael Conlan getting better with every fight says delighted coach Adam Booth

Michael Conlan is getting better with every fight says delighted coach Adam Booth Picture Mal McCann.
Michael Conlan is getting better with every fight says delighted coach Adam Booth Picture Mal McCann. Michael Conlan is getting better with every fight says delighted coach Adam Booth Picture Mal McCann.

SAINT Patrick’s Day back at the Garden will be “screaming” at Michael Conlan after his Christmas break said delighted coach Adam Booth after watching his man break down Vladimir Nikitin at the New York boxing Mecca on Saturday night.

Booth, a hard taskmaster, says Belfast featherweight ‘Irish Mick’ is progressing “the whole time” and having seen off Nikitin new rivalries will be made as Conlan seeks to fulfil his camp’s 2020 vision by becoming a world champion.

He scored a unanimous landslide points win before a raucous crowd at the Garden and Booth is now looking forward to what next year brings for his protégé.

“He is progressing the whole time,” he said.

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“That was a big challenge for him because Nikitin is a tough fella – he might be limited as a boxer – but he’s still a tough guy. If you are standing with him he will swing and in those moments Nikitin was the one who was getting hurt, not Michael.

“He proved that he can stand there and go with someone who can only do that style. When I look at the big picture and the specific elements, I’m delighted. Everything can always be better but that’s the whole point of why we do it fight by fight.

“Michael is 13-0, he is getting a lot of experience, a lot of progression and he has shown that he can box, he has shown he can fight. He can out-box boxers, he can out-fight fighters. The next thing that is screaming at us now is St Patrick’s Day.”

Cool, calm and collected Booth is the ideal foil for Conlan refused to get caught up in the emotional backstory of his third meeting with the Russian who had beaten him at the 2013 World Championship and of course infamously at the Rio Olympics three years ago.

“The danger of it was falling into the storyline and going: ‘Oh, I’m going to right the wrong’,” said London-based Booth.

“Because you still had a fella in there who was a wild swinger and when he got in close he hammered his fists on the back of Michael’s head and there were a lot of elbows in the face and a lot of head-butting.

“But I thought Michael kept his head the whole way through the fight really well and I’m really pleased with him.

“He was good about keeping his emotion in check.

“The plan was that early on he would pick the rounds up, box him southpaw and give nothing away. But every time he was coming back to the corner I could see that he just wanted to hurt him and break him and stop him and I just said: ‘Leave it to the second half of the fight’.

“80 per cent of the time he did exactly what he was supposed to do. He out-boxed him for the whole fight, he out-fought him a lot of the time. There were very few exchanges when Michael came off worst. So he out-fought him, he out-boxed him, he righted the wrong, he was carrying a lot of emotion into that fight and he showed improvement.

“All-in-all I’m happy because pretty much everything I asked him to do, he did. It was all about winning and giving nothing away and moving on to the next thing.”

As expected, Nikitin proved a tough nut to crack but his early tactics – boxing and moving behind a tight guard – were a surprise. Conlan moved further out of range after the second round and the Russian was unable to use the gung-ho aggressive style that has served him well in the past.

“Michael didn’t give him the distance for that,” Booth explained.

“In the first couple of rounds he was touching Michael with the straight right hand and I said to him: ‘You have to be preserved for the second half of the fight so don’t give him your body to touch’. As soon as he stopped letting him land that straight right hand to the body he settled down to the distance and started picking him off and cuffing him with the hooks.”