Camden featherweight contender Raymond Ford takes the next step in his promising career when he meets the unbeaten Hollywood, Florida-based Uzbek Otabek Kholmatov.

 

The two will fight at the Turning Stone Casino in Upstate New York on March 2 for the vacant WBA featherweight title and Ford has not fought since last April, when he outscored Jessie Magdaleno in Texas.

 

Ford, a decorated amateur and a 2018 national Golden Gloves champion, is 14-0-1 (7 KOs) and the stylish and cultured left-hander is boxing on “away soil”.

 

Ford is a Matchroom boxer who fights on DAZN, but Top Rank won the purse bids for the fight and Ford will next box on ESPN on a Top Rank bill headlined by the IBF featherweight title fight between Mexican Luis Alberto Lopez and Japanese challenger Reiya Abe.

 

However, fighting on a rival promoter’s show is of no concern to Ford.

 

“No, I feel like I’m going into a ring, and that’s my happy place,” the New Jersey contender explained. “So it don’t matter who’s promoting the fight; what canvas is out. As long as I’ve got a ring and a person in front of me, it’s going to feel like home.”

 

Kholmatov is 12-0 with 11 wins inside the distance, but Ford will not commit to saying whether his WBA title co-challenger is the best he has faced in the pros to date.

 

“I don’t know, I never know until after I fight these guys, so I can’t really say right now. I’ve just got to wait and see how it is when I get in there,” Ford added.

 

“I study my opponents, definitely; I do my homework. That’s every fight. I think he’s a solid fighter; I think he comes to fight and I’ve got be on my A game.”

 

Ford counts the likes of Floyd Mayweather, Roy Jones Jr., Shakur Stevenson, Andre Ward, Terence Crawford, “Canelo” Alvarez, and “Sugar” Ray Leonard as fighters he admires and while he has heard about another famous Camden boxer, former light-heavyweight champion Dwight Qawi, from the late 1970s and early 1980s, he has not studied the “Camden Buzzsaw” closely. 

 

Instead, he works with trainers Reginald Lloyd and Anthony Rodriguez – “Coach Reg” Lloyd who he has been with since 2018 and Rodriguez, who was brought on to the team in 2022.

 

It has been well-documented how Ford and Hearn at Matchroom hooked up. After the Golden Gloves, Ford saw that Hearn had watched one of his Instagram stories and then tagged him in a post. They began talking online, and initially Ford wanted to wait for the Olympics and the trials, but after suffering with a concussion Ford was sidelined for several months.

 

Talks escalated and Ford went pro. In 2021, he was even one of the visitors to Hearn’s back garden for Fight Camp, where the promoter staged bouts during the pandemic, and Ford stopped Reece Bellotti in three rounds. Bellotti won the British title earlier this month.

 

Asked what his relationship was like with Hearn now, Ford said: “I really don’t know, I guess it’s a boxer-promoter relationship. It’s not like we talk every day or anything like that. I see him when I see him.”

 

But Ford is ready for Kholmatov, and he is ready to make a mark in the sport.

 

“I’ve been a pro for five years so I feel like I’ve been waiting kind of long, but I think it’s the right time,” he said, before adding that he won’t stay at featherweight for long – unless the money or the fight is right.

 

“I’m not sticking around at the weight I’m at. I’m definitely looking forward to moving up in weight if there’s no big opportunities or big money after this fight. I’m definitely going to move up. I’m not sticking around. I’m going to go up and call out the champions up there.”