Josh Warrington claims he can’t dream of a huge unification world title clash with Leigh Wood until he takes care of Kiko Martinez.
Promoter Eddie Hearn wants to stage WBA featherweight champ Wood against Warrington either at Nottingham Forest’s City Ground or Elland Road. Warrington, 31, can win back his IBF crown from Martinez on March 26 at Leeds’ First Direct Arena and says he has learnt from his shock loss to Mauricio Lara last year not to overlook anyone.
“Yes, the prospect of Leigh Wood can give me extra motivation because you know it could be a potential fight after this,” the Leeds fighter told Mirror Sport. “But at the same time, no, because you don’t want to get too carried away and distracted and look past the man in front of you.
“That happened to me in the first Lara fight. I was focused on Can Xu, thinking about a unification fight there, and I took my eye off the ball. Whilst I know being successful will lead to bigger things, I’ve still got to stay switched on for Kiko. There are rewards if I’m successful on the 26th, but you can’t dwell on it too much or focus on it too much. You’ve got to concentrate on Martinez and go from there.”
Warrington watched Wood’s stunning win over Michael Conlan on Saturday at Nottingham’s Motorpoint Arena when he knocked the Belfast fighter out with 90 seconds remaining to retain his WBA belt. Warrington claims Wood and Conlan have rehabilitated boxing’s image after the huge controversy generated by the scoring for Josh Taylor’s win over Jack Catterall last month in Glasgow.
“I watched it and credit to both fighters, both fight brilliantly,” he said. “With what happened with Josh Taylor and Jack Catterall a few weeks back, boxing was being seen in a bit of a bad light, but after the weekend a lot of people are saying this is why boxing is the best sport in the world. What a contest! There are not many times you have a fight like that, a real Rocky Balboa fight.
“It’s certainly one of the best I’ve seen in terms of how it fell. If Mick had survived the last round, you would have said it’s been a hell of a performance from Conlan. But credit to Wood for his tenacity and never-say-die attitude, he just kept going. He was caught plenty of times and was down on the scorecards, although he was clawing it back, and he got the finish he wanted. It was a fantastic fight.”
Warrington is excited about the future and has told his wife he has no plans to retire because there are so many big fights out there for him if he beats Martinez. I was saying to the missus, I’m not sure when I’m going to retire because there potentially four or five fights for me on paper,” he said.
“There’s Leigh Wood, Leo Santa Cruz, a third Lara fight, there’s Mark Magsayo, who beat Gary Russell Junior, there’s Navarrete, there are potentially loads of big fights out there. The featherweight division is red hot. But first I’ve got to get through this next one against Kiko Martinez.”
