By Lee Thornton – On Saturday, March 2nd, 2024 at Turning Stone Resort Casino boxing fans will be treated to an outstanding world title fight between New Jerseys Raymond Ford & Otabek Kholmatov of Uzbekistan.

For this boxing writer it will be a full circle moment in covering Raymond Ford’s career as in March of 2019 while with fellow Boxing fan Brett Doyle we ran into Ford’s trainer Reginald Lloyd aka Reg who was working the corner of Jason Sosa, while speaking with Reg he highlighted Ford as a standout fighter who was about to embark on his pro career with the ink still wet on a recently signed contract with Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing. 

I immediately began researching Raymond Ford after hearing such high praise from Reg, a Philadelphia native who did his apprenticeship in a city known for producing a convey belt of champions, whilst watching the tape on Ford I observed blazing hand speed, excellent straight and right hooks along with patience in picking his shots more effectively every fight.

I expect Ford to have a great game plan for this fight especially with Reg and Coach Anthony, a teacher of the sweet science who shares his coaching tips on his sensational Youtube channel which I highly recommend for gaining valuable boxing knowledge.

Otabek Kholmatov the highly decorated amateur boxing standout comes into this fight with a 12-0 record with 11 stoppage wins, he is a southpaw who fights with length and has power in both hands along with standout accuracy and combinations.

Kholmatov will be guided by trainer Joel Diaz for this fight who has been building a stable of standout Uzbekistan fighters and is known for his work with Hall of Famer Timothy Bradley.  I believe some keys in this match up will be the following.

• How Ford deals with the size and length advantage that Kholmatov possesses.
• Will the wide shots and defensive lapses be Kholmatov’s downfall in this fight.
• How will Kholmatov deal with the massive hand speed advantage Ford will have in this fight.
• Will Ford get drawn into a firefight with Kholmatov?

Predicting a winner for this fight is extremely tough, if you look at the betting odds Kholmatov is a favourite in this match up with amazing amateur experience and great skills along with physical traits. However Ford has fought the better opposition and I believe fundamentally has an edge in this fight with his hand speed, defense and vastly improved patience, recently he as also added the experience of working with Shakur Stevenson, Zaquin Moses and Jaron Ennis.

I am predicting Ford to win a decision in this excellent fight Top Rank Boxing has made vs the extremely dangerous Otabek Kholmatov.