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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 4.
The Stevenage boxer is part of the undercard on the Hennessy Sports show which features Jonathan Thaxton of 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.
“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,” said Herdman.
“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.”
