{"id":847972,"date":"2026-08-06T08:26:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T08:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/847972\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T08:26:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T08:26:20","slug":"irish-amateur-great-joe-ward-says-irish-boxing-is-on-a-high-ahead-of-return-to-the-ring-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/847972\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish amateur great Joe Ward says Irish boxing is on a high ahead of return to the ring \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joe Ward<\/a> says Irish boxing is at \u201can all-time high\u201d ahead of his first fight in almost two years on Saturday at the 3Arena, Dublin.<\/p>\n

This weekend\u2019s show, headlined by Aaron McKenna\u2019s world middleweight title fight, will be the third at the 3Arena this year, while Katie Taylor<\/a>\u2019s final fight, at Croke Park, is less than a month away<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s good because I would have known all the guys through the amateur days,\u201d explains Ward. \u201cIrish boxing is at an all-time high now and it\u2019s great to see so many great shows happening here.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a stellar amateur career including three World Championship medals, Ward\u2019s pro career has seen injuries and cancelled fights delay his rise to the top of the sport. <\/p>\n

A little over a year ago, he suffered a \u201cbig let-down\u201d when a fight slated for Galway\u2019s Pearse Park against former British and European champion Lerrone Richards fell through.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0One unlikely win taught Katie Taylor to believe anything is possibleOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

However, professional boxing seems to be in a much healthier place in Ireland so far this year, and Ward sees the growing buzz around the sport when he is back coaching young amateurs in Athlone Boxing Club.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love giving back when I can, and seeing young boys and girls develop. To see now that there\u2019s fights happening on TV, it gives them more of an incentive to keep working hard; that if you really want to do it, the sky is the limit.\u201d<\/p>\n

After starting out his career in the US, the Westmeath man is now based in Waterford, where he is under the tutelage of long-time trainer Jimmy Payne: \u201cJimmy\u2019s been with me from the very start, and we went to America together.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously we worked alongside [former world title-winning boxer and coach] Buddy McGirt and [former world champion] Joey Gamache, but Jimmy has always been there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since suffering a loss due to a freak knee injury in his pro debut, Ward has won 12 consecutive fights, and believes he is among the best light heavyweight boxers in the world. This weekend he will face unbeaten Dutch fighter Artjom Kasparian, who is something of an unknown quantity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew him due to my amateur days, but I never boxed him. Look, he has a good record, he\u2019s 14-0 and he\u2019s a decent fighter. It looks a decent fight on paper, but I believe I\u2019m right up there at the top of the 175lb division.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joe Ward says Irish boxing is at \u201can all-time high\u201d ahead of his first fight in almost two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":847973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,295189,8808,82],"class_list":["post-847972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-joe-ward","tag-katie-taylor","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=847972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/847973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=847972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=847972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=847972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}