IBF world featherweight champion Josh Warrington is hopeful that a unification with WBA title holder Xu Can will be able to go forward at Emerald Headingley Stadium later this year.
The fight was close to being announced, when the coronavirus pandemic put the event on the shelf.
“I wouldn’t say he is the most technical. He has got a few inches on me in terms of height, and probably most featherweights, standing at 5ft 9in,” said Warrington to Yorkshire Evening Post.
“He has got a long reach as well. His main strength is his ability to throw so many punches. He admits himself that he doesn’t have the biggest punch power but what he doesn’t have in punch power he makes up in accumulation. The lads who have beaten him have taken the fight to him and played him at his own game but done it much better. I just feel like, the way that I fight, and I can fight at a higher pace as well, he won’t be able to out-do me.”
According to Warrington, his trainer and father, Sean O’Hagan, has been using the extra time to identify Xu’s strong and weak points.
“I know my dad has been watching plenty and writing plenty down. Every other night he has been sending me essays over text, on stuff we need to work on and the advantages and disadvantages he has got. I don’t want to work myself up too much that by the time the camp comes I am exhausted and bored of him. It is just about doing little bits here and there," Warrington said.
Warrington has been staying busy at home, keeping himself in shape, but he would much rather be in his normal training environment.
“I miss the lads in the gym and the banter and all that. I have just been going in and doing some bag work, skipping and shadowing. I have been setting myself out little circuits and then plenty of running to keep that fitness up. That is about it. I can’t do any pads or any sparring," Warrington said.
“I had started working with a new strength and conditioning coach over the last six-to-seven weeks. I was starting to get into his methods of training but, obviously, we can’t do anything until we get the all-clear and everything is good to be socialising again.”