Ray Ginley ready to shoulder prospect burden after recovering from shoulder injury

2014 has been far from sweet for Sugar Ray Ginley, but the Belfast light heavyweight hopes to finish the year with a bang and help Greenblood boxing explode before 2015 arrives.

Having impressed en route to a perfect 5-0 record, Ginley along with Anthony Cacace, Tyrone McKenna and eventually Olympic star John Joe Nevin joined forces with American based management team Greenbloods and was all set to take his career to the next level.

However, the Philadelphia based 21 year old suffered a shoulder injury on his Stateside debut. Ginley avoided a shock at the Electric Centre and registered a third round knock out win, despite suffering injury in round one of his fight with Marlin Washington, but hasn’t fought since the October fight night.

The former Emerald puncher had major surgery, is back in America and hopes to return to the ring next month and has targeted five wins before the year is out.

“Basically my shoulder got injured about  one minute into my last fight in October of last year. That prevented me from boxing and I had to get surgery to address the problem. Thankfully it wasn’t major surgery, it was a pretty straight forward procedure, but with any survey there is always the recovery process. I started punching only two weeks ago. I’m not 100% just yet but God willing I’ll be out again in the end of August and then hopefully twice in September out here,” Ginley told Irish-boxing.com.

“It’s been very frustrating not being able to train properly for so long, especially because I’m a gym rat, I just love being in the gym. Over that period I was just focused on getting back and I am closing in on a return.”

The big punching 21 year old, who will most likely fight at super middleweight, revealed his frustrations and admitting he is missing the ring, but was keen to set his sights on the positives.

Ginley remains excited about his future. He discussed the improvements he can make out in ‘Philly as well as the destination he believes the Greenblood bus can bring him.

“Being out here in Philly is just going to bring me on leaps and bounds as a fighter. You’ve got a great mix of styles out here. Fighters, boxers, punchers and fast fighters. I have a lot of room for improvement, but I’m in the best city for it.

“We have a great coach out here in Bozy Ennis, and I like his style of fighting and how he wants us to fight. He has me working a lot on being elusive always coming back with punches, working from angles, plenty of head movement.

“Everyone knows I can punch but I’ll need more than just heavy hands if I want to reach the pinnacle of the sport, but I think the fact I know my limitations combined with my eagerness to learn is a great thing for me.

“God willing everything goes to plan I’m going to have a busy second half of 2014 and have at least 6 fights which will bring me to hopefully 10-0 and then finally work towards some sort of title. GreenBlood is going to blow up pretty soon our fan base is just growing and growing, we’re gonna work the Irish market here in the US like never before!”