Kid Galahad said he offered to face Josh Warrington at four weeks’ notice after Warrington’s fight with Can Xu fell through, but was told Warrington would rather give up his IBF featherweight title than face him.
There will be no world title on the line on Saturday night when Warrington faces Mauricio Lara of Mexico, at Wembley. He had been due to face Can Xu, the WBA’s regular champion. But when that fight, which was originally die to take place last summer, was scrapped in stepped Lara. The plan had been to defend the BF title against the Mexican before returning to the ring, possibly against Xu, at the end of April.
But with Warrington’s mandatory defence against Galahad overdue, the IBF – which had agreed to an exemption until last November - refused to sanction the Lara fight and Warrington dropped the belt, which he won in 2018. The situation left Eddie Hearn, Warrington’s promoter, annoyed as he believed he had a step-aside deal in place, although Galahad, who was matched with Jazza Dickens for the vacant title, said he wasn’t prepared to wait any longer.
Part of the problem was that the IBF refused to recognise the fight with Xu as a unification as they did not recognise the WBA’s “regular” title. But when Warrington Xu did not get scheduled for ay of Hearn’s behind-closed-doors shows, Galahad said he felt messed around.
“Eddie said to me he had the Can Xu fight made, it was a done deal and it was going the happen last summer,” Galahad said, “Then somehow everyone boxed except Warrington against Can Xu. And he said it was a massive fight.
“He put on how many shows? He put on Joshua, he put on Katie Taylor twice, Terri Harper twice and he was going to put Dillian Whyte on twice. And he can’t put on Warrigton-Xu.”
Galahad said he agreed to a further step-aside deal, but Hearn then told him that Warrington, who won a split points decision over him in 2019, would not fight him again.
“Eddie gave me a ring and said he could make the Can Xu fight, but not until February,” Galahad said. “Then he said he would have the fight and then give up the IBF title 48 hours later.
“But he said ‘no matter what, he is not going to fight you, he said he would rather chuck in the title than fight you’.
“So I said ‘OK, he can fight Can Xu but it has to be a unification and the deal was it had to be last week of January or the first week in February’. Then he phoned me four weeks out and said he couldn’t get Can Xu over and he was going to fight this other guy and I’d have to step aside.
“The date had changed and the opponent had changed. I said ‘I’m not being funny, but he can fight me on that date. I’ll be ready, he can fight his mandatory, I’m not letting him fight no other stiff’.
“He said ‘Josh says he is not giving you a payday’. Yeah, well, why am I giving him a payday to fight some stiff in an easy fight?
“I said, ‘Eddie, I don’t want to do it’. What can you do? I got what I want. I’m fighting for the IBF world title and my eyes are on that.“
Hearn did not even put in bid for the Galahad-Dickens fight, with MTK Global, Dickens’s promoters, making the only bid. Galahad beat Dickens in 2013 for the vacant British super-bantamweight title and he said he is impressed that Dickens has moved onwards since that loss.
“You’ve got to give him credit, he’s an old school fighter,” Galahad said. “So, Josh Warrington, who has already beaten me, well on paper, won’t fight me, but a guy who I have already beaten will. It’s mad isn’t it?
“He’s shown he is dedicated to keep going this long and he deserves to fight at this level, but I just believe I am better than him in every department.”
He says he is not going to take Dickens lightly, though.
“What fight have I ever taken lightly?” he said. “In the end, I have been consistent my whole career. A bit of that is about who you are, a bit of it was how Brendan [Ingle] built you up from the get-go.
“It’s been hard getting to the top and they say it’s harder staying here, but I believe the type of fighter I am I will be at the top for a long time.
“Everything happens for a reason. I’ve never felt sorry for myself in life. I just get on with it. I’m not one of those kids who just sits there and cries. In this game you are not entitled to anything. You might not always get the fights you want, but if you look at all the great champions, every fight wasn’t a great fight.
“I just think about what I have to do in this next fight. I don’t think about what will happen after or anything else, it doesn’t matter to me. The world could end the day after, but that doesn’t matter. My whole thing is just to win the fight.”
Ron Lewis is a senior writer for BoxingScene. He was Boxing Correspondent for The Times, where he worked from 2001-2019 - covering four Olympic Games and numerous world title fights across the globe. He has written about boxing for a wide variety of publications worldwide since the 1980s.
