Ward a win for Birtley’s big-hitter

TOMMY WARD was a young whippersnapper – just 17 and part of the mighty Birtley stable of amateurs – when, disillusioned with recognition at national level, he turned professional without ever boxing as a senior.

Now Ward stands on the very cusp of a world title fight after winning his 26th consecutive scrap against all odds in Kansas.

Ward confronted Texan Jesse Hernandez on American soil having never fought south of Sheffield before, let alone 4,000 miles away.

Yet he dominated his WBO super-bantamweight eliminator with a performance of sheer artistry, winning by a country mile on all three scorecards in a bout beamed live on BoxNation in Britain and Showtime in North America.

Upon returning home in triumph this week, Ward’s manager Dave Garside said: “Tommy was phenomenal. The kid he fought had won all his 15 bouts and was rated in the top 15 with three of the four leading sanctioning bodies - but he could not lay a glove on Tommy.

“Referee Bill Clancy, a top-notch official, was ready to stop it after Tommy decked Hernandez in the fourth round.

“To my mind nobody has pushed Tommy yet in the whole of his pro career. That is how good he is.”

We had Ward phone in live on our boxing show The Fighter And The Writer which I do with Glenn McCrory on Koast Radio and he told us: “A lot of people underestimate my punching power because I have a lot of victories on points but I can bang.

“My goal has always been a world title and I believe it will happen more than ever now.”

Garside is in discussions with American promoter Dmitrij Salita to star “maybe June or July in New York.”

Meanwhile, as we await the hopeful conclusion of one fairytale, Tyneside might be about to boast another potential champion within its midst.

Ukraine’s Aleksandr Trifonov, a 29-year-old cruiserweight with a thunderous amateur record, is coming over to work with McCrory at O’Tooles Gym in Byker.

Neil Conlon, the man behind O’Tooles, is bringing Trifonov to Tyneside and expects him to be pushing for a world title by 2022.