Tommy Ward will put the finishing touches to his world championship eliminator in New York.
Team Ward will spend a week in the Big Apple ahead of the 24-year-old’s WBO super-bantamweight 10-round affair with Jesse Angel Hernandez in Kansas on February 15.
The Hartlepool-trained Co Durham talent jets out to the USA on February 2 with coach Neil Fannan, boss Dave Garside, plus stable-mate Lewis Ritson and elder brothers, Martin and Jimmy.
Tommy, Martin and Lewis will all train in two top Brooklyn gyms, Gleasons and Starrett.
“It will be nice,” Tommy told punch-lines. “It breaks things up a bit, I won’t do a great deal of sparring with it being the week before the fight, but Lewis and Martin will.
“It will be a good trip for all of us.”
Tommy is currently going through his paces at Fannan’s HQ In Hartlepool, where Team Ward have brought in two sparring partners from Ghana, Isaac Quaye and Abraham Bonsu.
They have been brought in to replicate the style of Ward’s opponent, with Hernandez renowned as an attacking boxer with a thirst for bodywork.
“We’ve brought in two sparring partners and we have a bit more sparring lined up,” said the IBF European champ, who is rated at four by the WBO.
“It’s gone well. The weight has gone good, the training, the sparring, everything.
“I’m looking forward to it, it’s a new challenge, something different, something new, something exciting.”
Indeed it is something different.
It’s Ward’s first taste of boxing outside the UK and he has undertaken a big task.
Hernandez, ranked 15 by the WBO, has won 12 of his 13 contests, the Texan having claimed seven of his successes by stoppage.
However, Ward is not in shabby nick himself, having won all three of his bouts in 2018, two of them inside the distance against Lesther Cantillano and Tom Tran, victories which sandwiched his IBF European triumph against Spanish champ Alvaro Rodriguez.
“If I can go there and do a job on Hernandez that will put my name up there and I hope that means I’ll be fighter for the world title next,” added the NE Security-sponsored star.
Ward, who is also backed by O’Tooles in Newcastle, has won all 25 of his pro contests.
Words: Roy Kelly Picture: Tom Collins/ Hartlepool Life
