Tag: Josh Warrington

Leigh Wood is Nottingham newest Miracle Man

A condensed version of this article was first published at BigFightWeekend.com

In the Spring of 79, deep in the bowels of the City Ground, home of Nottingham Forest Football Club, Brian Clough waited to conduct his media obligations. It was after 10 o’clock, in the aftermath of his team’s 3-3 draw with German champions Cologne in the Semi-Final of the European Cup. A result that meant the East Midlands club would need to win in Germany to progress in their maiden season competing alongside Europe’s elite.

Bristling with self-assurance, and as a man for whom miracles were customary, Clough refused to succumb to the notion that the team’s failure to secure a first leg lead meant their barely conceivable adventure in the competition would soon be at an end. He appeared emboldened by the doubt of others. As his team washed the clotted mud from their bodies and the Forest faithful wandered into the darkness beyond the floodlights, Clough closed the post-match TV interview with a lingering look toward the camera, a wry smile spilling across his face and the words; “I hope anybody’s not stupid enough to write us off.”

As Leeds’ hero Josh Warrington was whacked to the canvas on Saturday night by a series of unanswered hooks from the WBA Champion, and proud Nottingham man, Leigh Wood, having spent much of the completed rounds dominating his now conqueror, that quote drifted back to mind.

Continue reading “Leigh Wood is Nottingham newest Miracle Man” →
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Wood and Warrington battle to stay in the game

Article first published on gambling.com

This weekend’s WBA World Featherweight title bout between current champion Leigh Wood, 27-3 (16ko) and former IBF title holder Josh Warrington 31-2 (8ko) at the Sheffield Arena is one rich in competitive promise.

Flawed and feisty, the pair share much but arrive in Sheffield in wildly divergent form.

Continue reading “Wood and Warrington battle to stay in the game” →
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Leigh Wood to face wild Mexican Mauricio Lara

Article first appeared on BigFightWeekend.com

Two days ago, late night idling, I tuned in to a Twitter Space devoted to boxing. A handful of speakers and even fewer listeners. Some proclaimed a professional association to the sport, others merely lay opportunists, sharing profanity laden ‘shock jock’ opinions. It was an interesting medley. My visit lasted about the time it takes to endure a 40-36 show opener.

Extraordinary among this mundanity was the disdain shown for almost every fighter discussed. Listeners to the space may be surprised to learn just how many “bums” currently hold world title belts. I know I was. Among them, the panel suggested, was Leigh Wood, the Featherweight from Nottingham who was last seen knocking out Michael Conlon to secure the WBA belt.

Continue reading “Leigh Wood to face wild Mexican Mauricio Lara” →
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Warrington and the chaos beyond a loss

There is an uneasy solemnity that drapes, inky black, on those standing beside a beaten champion. Neon lights trace across drunken faces outside the ropes, microphones are readied and cornermen wipe sweat from opponent’s shoulders and blood from brows. Rivals embrace. Affirming their mutual respect. The imposters of triumph and disaster are met. Doctrine is observed. Doctors assured.

It is a peculiar, haunting void. A type of professional grieving commences. Sermons are offered. The flush of adrenalin weakens. Reality stirs. Those closest search for reason and for words of reassurance. Rendered motionless. Speechless too, but for familiar cliche. Startled by their own dependency, they know not where to be, where to look or what to do. The former champion still prowls, still sweats, still fighting the onrushing truth. Into the chaos beyond defeat, into the collapse of the exit plan, the lost income and stark realisation of a peak now passed, many more than just the deposed champion are plunged.

A defeat can often be a type of reckoning. Always unwelcome, it searches for the hidden truths. The miles not run, the sessions missed or, as Josh Warrington discovered on Saturday night, the irreversible signs of age. Perhaps noted in the convenience of silence or with a momentary locking of eyes, but dismissed or disguised in the privacy of training nevertheless.

As the boxing truism insists; fighters are the first to know but the last to say.

Continue reading “Warrington and the chaos beyond a loss” →
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Lopez leaps into world class after winning IBF title in rugged encounter

Luis Alberto Lopez, the little Mexican with an unsettling, maniacal grin, took the IBF Featherweight belt from Leeds’ Josh Warrington in an absorbing contest in front of the Yorkshireman’s partisan fans tonight. A triumph built on unshakeable self-confidence, heavy hands and a chaotic style that baffled and battered the 32-year-old Warrington for sufficient rounds to eek out a narrow points victory.

English judge Howard Foster scored a 114-114 draw, but two other judges saw 115-113 to the visiting Lopez despite the widespread expectation of a benevolent ‘hometown’ verdict circulating on social media.

In the end, with swing rounds in the 1st and 6th, the fight could’ve ended a draw, a 115-114 could be found on this obsever’s notepad, but Lopez felt like the winner if there was to be one.

Continue reading “Lopez leaps into world class after winning IBF title in rugged encounter” →
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Intersection. Josh Warrington defends against anarchic Luis Lopez

There is a crazy little Mexican man coming to Leeds on Saturday night. His name is Luis Alberto Lopez. A fighter with rocks in either hand, a wild glint in his eyes and zero shits given about the reputation of the man he challenges, IBF Featherweight champion Josh Warrington.

Their battle may be short, it may go the distance. A tantalising unpredictability pervades. Lopez’s style doesn’t lend itself to the science of a gambler’s algorithms nor the made to measure tailoring often afforded British attractions by promoters protecting their cut and that uncertainty provides a welcome frisson of excitement.

There are ingredients present for a blue-collar classic.

Continue reading “Intersection. Josh Warrington defends against anarchic Luis Lopez” →
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Time waits for no man, can weight add time for Frampton?

Frampton pummels Donaire

Carl Frampton, a 34 year old former champion at Super-Bantamwright and Featherweight, will attempt to win a portion of the world title at his third weight this weekend when he tackles Jamel Herring for the American’s WBO 130 pound belt. History presents little precedent for the challenge.

Fighters at the smaller weights don’t tend to prevail chasing their youth. Reflex, punch output and speed are necessary qualities simply to compete in the lands beneath, perhaps, Welterweight, where single shot power, fight ending power tends to be rare. There are exceptions, one of boxing’s biggest superstars, Naoya Inoue, has been cracking heads from Flyweight to Bantamweight in the last few years and there were others before him, but the fights are usually won and lost with technique, busyness and the cumulation of punches.

As the old boxing adage suggests, ’34 is old for a Featherweight”.

That is the truism Frampton must dispel if he is to succeed.

Continue reading “Time waits for no man, can weight add time for Frampton?” →
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‘Bronco’ Lara throws Warrington from the Featherweight saddle

Mauricio Lara

It is hard to know where to start a fight report on Josh Warrington’s contest with unheralded Mexican, Mauricio Lara. The 22-year-old, who catapults himself from anonymity and small purses to the world scene with the victory, remains the same boxer he was on Friday. He is still slow, with wide punches, ponderous feet and a propensity to mark up. But he has, whatever circumstances prove to have been in play, battered the best Featherweight in the world and knocked him out in spectacular fashion.

Congratulations to him for taking the fight and grabbing the chance. Almost everything else about the night felt wrong.

Continue reading “‘Bronco’ Lara throws Warrington from the Featherweight saddle” →
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Warrington steps down in pursuit of step up.

It is folly to expect men to do all that they may reasonably be expected to do.

Richard Whately, Philospher, 1787-1863

Lurching from the absurd to the ridiculous, from the passing Neon brightness of Leon to the deadly dark of the Panorama expose, boxing will be glad to get back to the business of, well, boxing this weekend. Even if it is the peculiar reality of Josh Warrington fighting an opponent who has a whiff of the unwanted mandatory about him, despite the absence of a world title belt to demand one.

The year begin, and remains, in the grip of a pandemic, but with every jab dispensed the sport, like the wider populous, is loosening its collar and daring to peak out at the Spring yet to come. British boxing’s self imposed hiatus, to relieve pressure on the health service, draws to a close and the popular Leeds born fighter will kick off the high profile schedule.

Of interest, despite the anonymity of the opponent, will be assessing whether Warrington can recapture the momentum lost due to inactivity.

Continue reading “Warrington steps down in pursuit of step up.” →
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Tyson Fury returns for carnival in Vegas – Preview and Tips

Tyson Fury

Article first appeared on Freebets.net

The earthquake caused by Andy Ruiz and inflicted on the heavyweight landscape continues to reverberate more than a week on from his astonishing triumph. Contenders are renewed and emboldened by Ruiz’s exploits. For a while, there will be a swirl of belief, of daring do to enflame those endowed with a shot at the sport’s leading lights in the months ahead.

Such was the completeness of Anthony Joshua’s denouement to the speed, guile and gumption of Ruiz that practically anything now appears possible.

Could an aftershock unseat another of the would-be trio of Kings? This weekend unheralded German Tom Schwarz will be the first to try as he attempts to fell the towering Tyson Fury at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Boxing bookmakers offer some attractive odds for those willing to dream the impossible dream. Continue reading “Tyson Fury returns for carnival in Vegas – Preview and Tips” →

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Warrington will remain urgent and ambitious as champion

Josh Warrington ready to go

Josh Warrington, the IBF Featherweight champion, has enjoyed proving people wrong this past twelve months. Firstly, and most potently, to the two world-class fighters he has faced in 2018; Lee Selby and Carl Frampton. Both were outworked and outthought to first win and then defend the title he now boasts. The suspicion Selby and Frampton felt they were superior pugilists and, therefore, consciously or otherwise, dismissive of the Yorkshireman was hard to supress.

Warrington explained their mistake with his fists in qualitative and quantitative terms. Neither Selby or Frampton could discourage or dissuade him.

In pursuing Frampton at all, despite acknowledging he represented the richest prize he could snare, Warrington showed an intent to fight the best available competition and not follow the more customary practice of a ‘soft’ first defence following the title win.

Warrington’s manager, Steve Wood assures fans, the aim is to continue chasing gilded rivals and not settle for simple defences. [4 min read]

Continue reading “Warrington will remain urgent and ambitious as champion” →

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BoxingWriter.co.uk Fighters of the Year 2018

Tyson Fury

It is said that time feels increasingly fleeting with the passing of every year. A lament often aired during the Christmas frivolities, as the day itself ‘cannonballs’ in whilst our minds are still fresh from collecting spent rockets and eating the last of the Halloween Haribo. Certainly for those of us wrestling with middle life, the sticky toffee that holds the melange of children, grandparents and other assorted acquaintances together, the reflection brought on by year end arrives all too quickly.

Add in an interest in the world of boxing, a niche within the Venn diagram of human existence once obscure and peripheral but now experiencing a population boom, and the pace is quickened still further. No weekend in the boxing fan’s diary is ever clear, perhaps save the one forthcoming, and the platforms and mediums for indulging their passion grows by the day. There is barely time to pause for breathe between a Spring time heavyweight showdown in a football stadium and a Featherweight dust up on the brink of New Year.

But, just as the charity pleas that interrupt our Christmas viewing and draw us back from the excess of our indulgence and before we dare to complain, gratitude should be our only sentiment.

Continue reading “BoxingWriter.co.uk Fighters of the Year 2018” →

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Warrington overwhelms Frampton

As I imagined the seats slapping back to rest, the discarded plastic glasses being brushed along the aisles and the last heels clip-clopping from the arena into the Manchester night, the electricity of Josh Warrington’s performance still charging the air, there was time to recognise a first flush of empathy for his vanquished foe, Carl Frampton.

Frampton has been a fantastic fighter and though he may yet accomplish further before retiring, the weight of the ‘has been’ in this sentence is a burden he has been stubbornly resistant to but can no longer contest. In Yorkshireman Warrington, Frampton was forced to face the ripeness of his career by a fighter of unrelenting intensity and aggression. As had been the suspicion of the small band of Warrington believers, he represented the worst type of opponent for Frampton at this stage of his career.

Whatever the headlines of today and tomorrow, it was a performance of great skill and tactical acumen by Warrington, not just the fervour and volume that caught the eye; though all were key ingredients to the ‘pudding of proof’ he provided.

Continue reading “Warrington overwhelms Frampton” →

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Bet on Warrington to surprise Frampton

Article first appeared on gambling.com

The featherweight division has provided a platform for many of British boxing’s most noted prize fighters.

From Jim Driscoll a century ago, who lost much of his prime to the First World War, to Welshman Howard Winstone in the 1960s and the braggadocios Prince Naseem Hamed of the 1990s, the 126-pound weight class has been rich in world-class operators from Great Britain.

On Saturday night, at the raucous Manchester Arena, two more British featherweights will seek to carve their names alongside their prestigious predecessors. Continue reading “Bet on Warrington to surprise Frampton” →

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IBoxingTickets.com’s May Boxer of the Month: Josh Warrington

There is, I believe, something hard wired in to our collective psyche that encourages us to root for the underdog; to cheer for those that seek to overcome, those that rise when knocked down or stretch for a dream apparently beyond them. Perhaps this solidarity is a product of our island status and the ensuing defiance it encourages, all clotted together into a sugary fudge by the echoing sentimentality of a thousand war films and a warped nostalgia for an Empire we now apologise for.

Or maybe it isn’t special to us at all, and is, more truthfully, a simple and innately human response to the plight and peril facing those dwarfed by the assets and advantages of their foes. What ever informs this predilection for the ‘little man’, I’m surprised it didn’t infect my judgement of last month’s Selby and Warrington match. A contest which secured Warrington the IBF Featherweight belt and now the IBoxingTickets.com’s Boxer of the Month for May. Continue reading “IBoxingTickets.com’s May Boxer of the Month: Josh Warrington” →

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That was the boxing weekend that was (22nd Oct. 2017)

The punchers threw punches, opponents ducked and stumbled, people were drawn to their feet, the crowd howled and cheered. Women, and a few men, were heard to gasp and scream as the action, dramatic and fast moving unfolded. Momentum shifted and in the end, as the lights came up, it was hard to determine an outright winner. Inside the ring, British fighters progressed their respective causes, new stories were begun and one or two names, loaded with nostalgia for those of my generation, echoed from Saturday nights of the past.

It was a heady mix, one without the prestige or brutality of the preceding weekend’s knockouts and with the sense of a fistic hors d’oeuvre for bigger nights yet to come. Despite this, there was much to enthral and the fights and their outcomes revealed plenty about the horizons of the combatants. Continue reading “That was the boxing weekend that was (22nd Oct. 2017)” →

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