HOUSTON, TEXAS – Raymond Ford remains unimpressed by the run of results that makes O’Shaquie Foster one of the world’s most in-form fighters.

He also insists that Foster will have to improve on his recent victory over Stephen Fulton if on Saturday he is to retain his WBC junior-lightweight title.

It is at Houston’s Fertitta Center that the 27-year-old Ford will be Foster’s latest challenger, and where he follows Fulton, Robson Conceicao, Abraham Nova, Eduardo Hernandez and Rey Vargas in attempting to stand in the champion’s way.

Foster won the vacant title against Vargas before dramatic defences against Hernandez and Nova, and he then followed those victories with the controversial defeat by Conceicao that he immediately avenged.

When he then moved up to lightweight and so convincingly outpointed Fulton he was widely considered to have shown further signs of improvement throughout the course of a career-best performance, but Ford is adamant that for all of Foster’s momentum he is about to prove his greatest test yet.

Foster, 32, required 12th-round knockdowns to narrowly defeat Hernandez and Nova and prove that at the very least until the final bell he will remain dangerous. Ford regardless more convincingly defeated Nova in his past fight in August 2025 to earn Saturday’s contest and is adamant that Foster’s flaws are responsible for him requiring that nature of win.

“Those guys is not on my level – the ones he was having trouble with,” Ford told BoxingScene. “Their IQ just wasn’t good enough to get them through to finishing the fight. They either get lazy, careless, or whatever, and they end up blowing it. I’m a lot more disciplined than them. I’m just different from any guy that he ever been in with, and it’s gonna show.

“That [against Fulton] was the best of his career for sure. The only problem with that is it’s not good enough for me. That performance is not good enough to beat me. Me and his last fight is two different fighters. I’m not gonna approach the fight the same way [Foster] approached it. His last fight he came in there and he didn’t try to make no adjustments and there wasn’t no urge. ‘I’m okay with how the fight is going – this is just how it’s going to end up.’ Me, it’s different. We’re just two different fighters. That way that he beat him is not gonna get it done.

“His jab; his movement [are Foster’s biggest strengths].

“He’s decent. He’s a good boxer. But I feel like the best [I’ve fought] so far is Otabek Kholmatov. He’s better than O’Shaquie, in my opinion. He was bigger [than me]; he was stronger; he was more awkward, and he had a better boxing IQ than I thought.”

It was in 2024 when Ford defeated Kholmatov to first win the WBA junior featherweight title, but he then narrowly lost it to Nick Ball on the occasion of his first title defence.

He responded by moving up in weight and recording three convincing victories, but he is adamant that his improvement owes almost entirely to the additional four pounds.

“I’m a way better fighter because I’m more comfortable,” he said. “I’m just a different fighter all around since I moved up, and it’s gonna show. I’m gonna show it.

“My nutritionist [changed]. I changed my team but I ain’t really changed-changed my team. I didn’t like how certain things was going in camp – I feel like they wasn’t doing their part. But we got past that. Now we good – I still got the same team.

“I don’t really think it changed me much as a fighter. I’ve been the truth; I’m always gonna be the truth; I don’t think it really changed me much. It didn’t change my confidence level; I still believe in myself 1,000 per cent. I still carry myself the same. I don’t really think there’s much of a change. I’m just at a more comfortable weight class. I can feel like myself; I ain’t doing too much, fight week; I ain’t harming my body. I can feel good going into these fights.

“I don’t think about [that defeat] at all. A lot of people want me to think about it; they’re frustrated I don’t think about it. I play it like I don’t care about the loss – which I really don’t. It don’t bother me. I haven’t lost sleep at night thinking about that loss, ever. Not once. People are bothered ‘cause I seem so unbothered about it. It doesn’t hurt my confidence; I carry myself the same way. If anything I got more confidence – I started talking more shit. I don’t think it really hurt me in any way.

“That’s the only thing they can talk about. That’s the only thing they bring up. Anytime – any chance they get, they bring it up. They try to get that instilled into my head. ‘You lost to Nick Ball; someone who’s 5ft-whatever.’ They try to make me feel bad about myself for taking that loss, but I know who I am at heart. Can’t nobody make me feel no type of way. I know who I am.

“Skill-wise, I believe [Foster is better than Ball]. But I don’t think he will be tougher – especially the circumstances I was under. I don’t think it’ll be a tougher fight.”

Foster, like Ford, is a long-term resident of Houston. It is partly for that reason that there has previously existed tension between them dating back to a cancelled sparring session, but Ford – from Camden, New Jersey – expects Foster to have home advantage because of his Texan roots.

“Texas gonna support they own,” he said. “He from Orange [in Texas]. But Texas people, they gonna support their own, and it’s all good, but after the fight they’re gonna love me.

“I don’t really pay attention to the crowd when I’m fighting – I just stay locked in on the fight. I’ve done it before – fought a guy in his actual hometown, and beat him every round, made the crowd quiet. I’ve had it before – I’ve been booed a couple of times, it’s nothing new to me. All the pressure on O’Shaquie. All the pressure on him. I ain’t got nothing to worry about. It’s his hometown. I fought a few other guys out here in Texas, from Texas [too].

“It’s just like any other fight to me – I don’t really like to call it ‘Personal’. It’s just another fight.

“I really don’t care what he said [about Stevenson] or what he think. Everybody got they wishes, and they can plan it however they want to plan it, but he’s still gotta deal with me. All that – if you can’t deal with me, you can’t get to what you wanna get to. All that’s irrelevant. He really just keeps bringing up Shakur’s name to build his fame and get eyes on him ‘cause that’s the only time people gonna mention him or talk about him. They don’t talk about him. Nobody’s dying to see O’Shaquie Foster, so he gotta somehow make his name popular. He been pro since 2012; he just now starting to get some shine. He’s a hater – that’s all.”