Irish boxing is bracing itself for its biggest four days since the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing…..

John Joe Nevin (red)

John Joe Nevin will be between the ropes for his eagerly anticipated bantamweight bout with Mexico’s Oscar Fierro-Valdez at approximately 8.45pm tomorrow evening.

The winner will be guaranteed at least a bronze medal from the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

Katie Taylor. Michael Conlan and Paddy Barnes will also be in quarter-final action on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in what will be, starting tomorrow, the biggest four days in Irish amateur boxing since the Beijing 2008 Olympics.

Meanwhile, Turkish light-heavyweight Bahram Muzaffer fell at the first hurdle at the ExCel tonight after he was well beaten 18-12 by Iran’s Ehsan Rouzbahani.

Muzaffer, who controversially beat Ireland’s Joe Ward in the final Olympic qualifiers for European male boxers in Turkey this year, received a bye into the last-16.

Rouzbahani beat Ward on a countback for a place at London 2012 at the 2011 AIBA World Championships and London 2012 qualifiers in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Elsewhere in the light-heavyweight class tonight, Russia’s Egor Mekhontcev eliminated Australia’s Damien Hooper. Ward has beaten Mekhontcev and Hooper in the last two years.

Meantime, the opening bell for first ever female bout in the history of Olympic boxing will toll at 1.30pm at the ExCel tomorrow.

Russian flyweight Elena Savelyeva meets North Korea’s Kim Hye Song in an historic first for the female version of the noble art 108-years after men’s boxing was introduced as an Olympic sport in St Louis in 1904.

Great Britain’s Natasha Jonas and America’s Queen Underwood also go head-to-head Sunday. The winner will face Katie Taylor in the quarter-finals on Monday.