His Matchroom Fight Camp debut was a “savage” one for Raymond Ford.

The promising New Jersey prospect exemplified why he is regarded as one of the sport’s promising young talents when he stopped Reece Bellotti inside three rounds on Saturday in Brentwood.

“In the third round, I was going to start to box and slow it down because I was throwing too many fast, hard shots to hurt him early,” Ford (9-0-1, 5 KOs) stated following his victory.

“My team told me to settle down because we had ten rounds to go, and then he came on and ran into the shot. I knew if I didn’t get him out of there when I had him hurt, he was just going to be a tough guy and keep coming forward. When I hit my shot, I had to get him out of there.”

The 22-year-old Ford was coming off a disappointing eight-round draw on the undercard of the Juan Francisco Estrada-Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez II undercard in Texas back in March.

However, he knew his style could be problematic for Belloti, and he exposed that with ease.

“I knew that he [Bellotti] was kind of the bully and everything, so I wanted to beat the bully in the fight,” he told BoxingScene.com. “I heard a lot about his power, guys saying his power was up there at the top, I just wanted to show I can be a bigger bully, and that’s what I did.

“I said yesterday that I was going to handle the pressure. I was just starting to warm up and settle in, but the more the fight would have went, the more you would have seen me relaxed and be sharper. I was getting hit by some dumb shots, but that was because I was warming up and getting a feel of everything – being back after five months. “

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