HOUSTON, Texas – Raymond Ford has played down the prospect of pursuing “revenge” against O’Shaquie Foster ahead of a fight that Foster considers increasingly personal.
Ford challenges Foster for the champion’s WBC junior-lightweight title at the Fertitta Center in Houston, where they both live, but after a rivalry that has built since he insisted Foster abandoned plans to spar him he is also adamant that his focus is strictly on winning Foster’s title, not settling an old score.
The 32-year-old Foster has been critical of both Ford and his trainer Tarae Stevenson since Saturday’s date was confirmed. He has also previously been critical of Ford’s promoters Matchroom, with whom he was once associated, but Ford – the former WBA featherweight champion – insists that he is not emotionally involved.
“My main focus is to go in there and fight,” the 27 year old told BoxingScene. “Revenge and all that don’t really matter if you don’t go in there and perform. I just gotta go in there and perform and do my thing.
“He said something like he wasn’t in town or whatever [when we were supposed to spar] – like we really ain’t scheduled it. But I’ve got the messages. He told me he wasn’t in town at that time when I was asking for him to spar, but he told me he was gonna be back in town; we set up the date that he was gonna be home.
“We set it up. He can try to act like it’s something that it ain’t, or whatever. He know the truth and I know the truth. We were supposed to get some work and he didn’t. But he said something else in another interview a long time ago. He told the other guy that I was fighting that he was gonna spar him. It was something like that. He was sparring a guy that I ended up fighting. But I really don’t pay too much mind to that. I’m not taking it deep or personal. I really don’t care about that. It was years ago. I don’t really care to spar you – you not no name. You wasn’t nobody back then. Nobody knew who you was – you wasn’t no world champion. I was just trying to get some work, that’s all.”
Foster has also spoken about targeting a future fight with Ford’s friend and gym-mate Shakur Stevenson.
“Whether he be honest about it or not it don’t bother me,” Ford continued about his and Foster’s history. “We still fighting, so I don’t care. That’s just his character – that’s just who he is. He gotta live with that. He gotta look himself in the mirror and just know he be cancelling a bunch a stuff. I just let him talk.”
