Nineteen pro fights. Two dozen years in the sweet science as a whole, including his amateur days. One exhibition bout with an infamous monster from Game of Thrones.

That’s enough for Steven Ward.

The 35-year-old cruiserweight from Northern Ireland , a little more than two weeks after suffering his final defeat: a ninth-round stoppage loss to Mike Perez. Ward’s final record is 15-4 (5 KOs).

That fight happened on the June 7 undercard of Fabio Wardley’s come-from-behind knockout of Justis Huni. Ward was far behind on the scorecards and Perez dropped him twice in the eighth round, then once more in the ninth, leading Ward’s team to throw in the towel and protect their fighter.

“It's been a fun 24 years,” Ward posted on Instagram. “The sport has been good to me, both in the ring and developing me as a person.”

Ward entered the paid ranks in late 2016 and won his first 12 fights before suffering a first-round TKO loss to 15-5-1 light heavyweight Ricards Bolotniks in December 2019. 

Ward then moved up to cruiserweight but fought sparingly – a win in September 2020 over a 5-5 foe, followed by a technical decision loss in December 2021 to the 3-0 Kamshybek Kunkabayev, who was coming off winning a bronze medal in the Olympics.

Well before the Kunkabayev fight, at the start of 2021, Ward took part in an exhibition match with Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, the gargantuan Icelander best known for playing the fearsome “Mountain” on Game Of Thrones.

Ward mounted a comeback in March 2024 with a points win over a designated opponent. Then came a fifth-round TKO loss in July 2024 to the 17-1 Juergen Uldedaj. Ward bounced back well this past March with a sixth-round TKO victory over the 21-6 Tommy McCarthy, which led into the fight with Perez.

“There are too many people to thank,” Ward wrote. “My family, and Nigel Travis, Jamie Moore, Martin Murray and Gareth Edgar, who got me enjoying the sport again after a few years of inactivity, and all the people in the gym who I trained alongside. Not to mention my manager Lee Eaton, who got me the opportunity, and the sponsors/friends who supported me, and all punters, the people who always got tickets to watch me fight, thank you.”

David Greisman, who has covered boxing since 2004, is on Twitter. David’s book, “,” is available on Amazon.