Lee Purdy will be out to continue his promising professional career when he has his seventh professional fight at the York Hall in Bethnal Green on Friday, April 4th. The Colchester lightweight is still unbeaten since making his professional debut in December 2006 and boxes on the undercard of Norwich’s Jon Thaxton against Yuri Romanov (Belarus) for the European lightweight title..
The Hennessy Sports show in association with title partners GoldenPalace.com will be shown live on Sky Sports 1, from 9.30pm.
20-year-old Purdy turned professional despite a lack of amateur experience and hopes to earn a shot at a minor title later this year.
Purdy has been left full of confidence thanks to sparring with British champion Thaxton ahead of his six round bout with Northampton’s Jamie Spence, who has won four of his five fights.
He said: “I’ve been sparring with Tom Glover and Jon Thaxton for this one, and it has been great experience sparring with the British champion. I’ve learnt loads off Jon and it has really helped my confidence.
“Things are going great at the moment, couldn’t be better. I want to fight another three or four times this year, staying busy like I did last year, and then hopefully I can get to fight for a little title like the British Masters or something.
“I don’t know much about Jamie Spence, except that he has got similar experience to me so it should be a close fight.
“I only had eight fights as an amateur eight years ago but it has not held me back I don’t think.”
“Nothing can stop me now”
Daniel Herdman is confident there will be no repeat of his nightmare professional debut when he has his third paid fight at the York Hall in Bethnal Green on Friday, April 4th.
The Stevenage boxer is part of the undercard on the Hennessy Sports show which features Jonathan Thaxton (Norwich) against European lightweight champion Yuri Romanov as the main event, with Sky Sports 1 screening the action live from 9.30pm.
Herdman, 23, is a part-time bricklayer and trained by Tony Sims after an amateur career that included winning the Junior ABA title, Olympic Junior silver medal and England international honours. Now he trains alongside Barnet’s Darren Barker, Scotsman Dave Stewart and Canning Town’s George Hillyard.
The light-middleweight, who represented east London amateur club Repton before turning pro, made his professional debut in October but things did not go according to plan and he lost on points after four rounds to Latvian Gatis Skuja at the York Hall.
But Daniel won convincingly on points when he returned to the same venue to beat Cambridge’s Ben Hudson in February.
He said: “All the nerves got to me with it being my pro debut and a big occasion, plus I hurt my hand during the fight which didn’t help.
“Everything got to me and I didn’t do myself any justice. But I felt a lot more relaxed for the next one and I feel nothing can stop me now, there won’t be any nerves.
“I know what I’m going in there for now and I know what to expect. Bernard Hopkins lost his first fight, and he went on to be a world middleweight champion for years.
“I’ve been training in Tenerife for this fight. I went over there as a holiday, but when I learnt I had a fight coming up I started running up the mountains there and training in a gym.
“I want to keep getting out this year and keep making progress.”
Tickets for York Hall, Bethnal Green
4th April 2008 now on sale via Ticketmaster box office
TEL:0870 060 1795
www.ticketmaster.co.uk
24hr hotline
£40 Unreserved seating
£100 Inner ringside seating