Johnny Fisher believes that the difficult, eye-opening ten rounds he shared with Dave Allen in Saudi Arabia last December shook him out of his comfort zone.

The British heavyweights met on the undercard of the unified heavyweight title rematch between WBC, WBO, WBA and Ring Magazine champion, Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury.

Delighted to have been given the opportunity to appear on such a big stage, Fisher and Allen became an amusing double act throughout the pre-fight build up, sharing sparring stories and jokes.

The fight also got off to a low key start with Fisher edging the early rounds. Having successfully lulled his man into a false sense of security, the wily Allen suddenly began to draw him into a fight. He dropped Fisher with a short hook in the fifth and appeared to dominate the second half of the fight. The judges, however, rewarded Fisher’s early work and handed him a controversial split decision victory.

A rematch was an inevitability and, on May 17th, Fisher (13-0, 11 KOs) and Allen (23-7-2, 18 KOs) will meet at London’s Copper Box Arena.

Allen has spoken repeatedly about the vast gap in experience between the two being far too wide for Fisher to gap in such a short space of time but the unbeaten 26 year-old from Romford has clearly learned something from their first meeting.

From the fight’s launch press conference, Fisher has tried his best to avoid getting drawn in by Allen’s self-depreciating humour.

Allen has admitted that he did everything in his power to control the younger man both in and out of the ring first time around and while he certainly isn’t the type to be intimidated by Fisher’s new business-like approach, he has admitted to feelings of self-doubt in the past and could begin to question himself if he starts to feel like things are slipping away from him.

“The build up to the fight, it was too friendly,” Fisher said during Matchroom’s ‘The Final Build-Up’ Show. “It was too nice. I don’t really get myself up for it. I need to be a little bit colder. I’m fighting him. He’s my enemy.”

“I can’t be as nice. When I’m in the ring I’m not nice and I’ve gotta harness that a little bit more. It means doing my job properly and my job is to win a boxing match.”

Fisher has quickly developed into a huge cottage industry. From his larger than life Chinese food eating father to his growing ‘Bosh Army’ of fans, he has become one of the biggest ticket sellers in British boxing.

Until last December, everything had also gone his way between the ropes and observers had started to raise their expectations of him after a series of impressive performances. Allen provided him with a worrying reality check.

Realising the importance of Saturday’s rematch, Fisher has removed himself from the attention and backslapping and taken himself away to Fuerteventura to prepare for the fight with his trainer, Mark Tibbs.

“Strip everything else away. All the b———it, all the talking, all the b———s from other people outside the ring. They don’t know what it’s like when you’re in there,” he said.

"The bottom line is I’m a professional boxer and all the other stuff is all b———s.

“I’ve always trained professionally, I’ve always trained hard but one thing or another gets in the way sometimes. Little one percents build up. You beat Alen Babic in 20 seconds. You have a knockout in Vegas in a round. You don’t take your eye off the ball because I’m a professional but little things can creep in.

“We’re stripping things back to where they need to be.”