The career of Josh Warrington has had peaks and valleys.
When he was on the run that saw him scalp Lee Selby, Carl Frampton, and Kid Galahad, he was on fire. Then came Covid, losses, and inactivity.
Suddenly, someone who turned pro with only modest aspirations but who had achieved so much was left disappointed with how things were turning out.
He’d long dreamt of giving his huge Leeds fanbase a Hatton-esque away day in Las Vegas.
And there were talks of big fights with big names.
Even now the 34-year-old veteran is unsure whether to be ecstatic or frustrated with how things have gone. Not many two-time world champions can say that.
“That mindset stuff, I could talk to you about all day,” he shrugs. “That’s another interview, for when I retire.”
Josh has often told the story that he would aim for an area title and then take it from there.
Then he targeted the English title, won it, moved on to the British. With that collected, he won the European. Then there was a brace of IBF crowns.
All of his early and modest expectations were comfortably exceeded.
“It’s crazy. At one point I’m number one in the world, I’m ranked in the top 10 of the pound-for-pound Ring Magazine rankings and I’m number one Ring Magazine-ranked in the featherweight division. I’m being mentioned with Leo Santa Cruz, Gary Russell Jnr, Shakur Stevenson, and then, you know, people [were] thinking [if] I fight Shakur, maybe it’s a bit too early for Shakur at the time. I thought I’d beat anybody in the world. I’d never been dropped, never been hurt, never been stopped, and, like I said, it just never happened.”
Now 32-4-1 (8 KOs), the Leeds warrior has had just seven fights in six years, and he’s 2-4-1 in those.
Things went badly wrong when Mauricio Lara came and shocked him in London in a behind-closed-doors fight.
Seven months later, he tried to get Lara back – and in front of his home stadium crowd in Leeds – but an early clash of heads saw the bout ruled a draw after just two rounds.
The Englishman boxed well to take Kiko Martinez’s IBF belt, but was left with a broken jaw and his uncertainty about how it would hold up cost him the early rounds against Luis Lopez as he lost the title in his first defense.
Nearly a year on and there was a contentious defeat to Leigh Wood. The fight was a war, and Warrington was well in it until Wood struck in round seven and the contest was stopped. Warrington claimed he was able to continue.
Nearly a year passed again, and Warrington was outpointed by in-form Irishman Anto Cacace, before a keep-busy bout with Asad Asif Khan in April brought him to where he is today, waiting for fight news.
And he still wants more.
“A hundred per cent. Listen, I always say this: If the fire’s still burning there, you’ve got to act on it, and once that fire goes out, then you need to walk away,” he said.
And there are still plenty of options that should make commercial sense. Earlier in the year, there was speculation that he could face Michael Conlan. There have been talks for a Leigh Wood rematch in October, which is when Warrington could return.
“I spoke about this earlier in the year,” Warrington said of Conlan. “Me and Mick, our names have been played together behind the scenes throughout the industry, but it’s never really come to public light. Mick’s always been the division below me in terms of weight class, but let’s say that it has been spoke about a fair few times. It’s just never came to light until quite recently. That might have got a bit of legs back in January, February time, and then Mick announced that he was going to be fighting for a European title, and then he was going to be doing something else, and he was just going to be campaigning at featherweight and that’s the last of that. Then, obviously, he came up with a fight against Khan [a month after Warrington fought the same opponent], and then he’s scheduled to fight Jack [Bateson, also from Leeds, like Warrington]. I think that’s where he is at this moment in time, and I’m sure he won’t be taking his eye off of Jack whatsoever.”
Conlan cannot afford to slip up against Bateson in Dublin on September 5 if he is to fulfil his dream of winning a world title.
“I think it's a fight where Jack has no pressure on his shoulders whatsoever, and what I mean by that is he’s not expected to win, and he’s going into the lion’s den,” continued Warrington. “Really, he has nothing to lose. I think he’s been waiting for an opportunity, and I know Jack really well. I’m good friends with Jack, and I keep a close eye on his movements and stuff, and he’s been staying hungry in the gym, but no one’s expecting anything of him, whereas Mick, he obviously wants to win that world title. I think he’ll be disappointed if he doesn’t finish his career without picking one up. But he is awkward on his night, it [he atmosphere]’s going to be something Jack probably isn't used to, and I think that can play in the favor of Mick, and I think Jack will need a bit of spite. He’ll need a bit of dog. He’ll need a bit of nastiness in him, because even though I don’t consider Mick a big puncher, he has that nastiness and spite in him, where he can goad Jack a little bit. Jack’s got to be thick-skinned and stay really focused.”
Warrington admits he is not in the position he once was. He doesn’t necessarily expect to be afforded a 12-week camp for a fight, so he’s in the gym staying ready, but he understands the landscape of the sport today demands being on the spot if the phone rings and a lucrative opportunity arises.
“It’s just a weird, weird time,” he added. “It’s like we've got all these big, massive Saudi shows going on, a lot of money pumped in, which rightly so, the boxers up and down deserve, but in the same breath, the bit of the stable… the bit of a backbone that’s been created over the last 10, 15 years, it’s kind of just dwindled away, you know, where we used to see shows every month, sometimes numerous times a month, in stadiums up and down the country with a big headliner, a big chief support, and a few domestic titles on the card. It’s kind of gone quiet. It’s almost like no one really knows what’s going to happen next, really.”
But Warrington can depend on his support to be there for him. They turn out in their thousands regardless, even though by his own admission the impetus of a few years ago has faltered.
“I think the momentum that got me to 30-0 got broken by Covid, and then since then it’s been a slippery slope of a bit of bad luck and things just not going my way, and there’s things I’ve had to deal with,” he explained. “Things I didn’t think would ever affect me, but I’ve paid the price on the night, and you know what, there’s only one way to learn and that’s on the night. The big gaps of inactivity and maybe, I don’t know if that’s down to my own self, not agreeing to just have a steady comeback fight after taking losses… When I boxed Kiko Martinez to become a two-time world champion, I also suffered a broken jaw and I couldn’t do anything else but face my mandatory challenger in Luis Alberto Lopez, but I didn’t realize how much mental strain that injury would have taken on me, leading to that fight, and obviously it’s not just on this, but I’m just telling you how much it affected me for that first fight. I didn’t wake up [at the start of the Lopez fight, he was better in the bout’s second half], and then carrying that over and moving on to the Wood fight, a long 10 months later, a fight where I was dominating and then it just changed in an instant, which is the sport of boxing at times, I didn’t realize how much that would affect me mentally going into the Cacace fight, because I was fit, I was super strong, obviously moving up in the division, but I never felt that Cacace punched like a fellow that had been dominating the division. I told myself I wasn’t going to get spangled like he had done to Joe Cordina, and I went into a shell in that fight. I completely froze, and that’s why at the end of that fight, you see, I put my gloves down, because I was just frustrated.”
Warrington is a father to twin girls, aged seven, and he had a son last Christmas.
Like many boxers, he is fighting to give them a future, making sacrifices in his life so theirs will be better.
But time is no longer on his side.
“This is the truth, I’m 16 years a pro, I’m probably getting to the stage where I’m one of the longest [serving] British fighters around a certain generation,” he said. “When I look up and down of fighters who’ve been hanging up the gloves recently, and I think like, ‘What the hell? That’s that one gone, that’s that one gone.’ Over years, I think like 11 years ago, I was at the Matchroom barbecue, and there was myself, AJ [Anthony Joshua], [Tony] Bellew, Ricky Burns, Kevin Mitchell, all these great names, and 90 per cent of them guys have all retired by now, and I’m still going. But in the same breath I’ve given a lot to sport, and I’ve sacrificed a lot. It’s not like I’m sulking and all. I’ve done my bit, but I think it's just the times. I just want to switch off from social media and disappear. I’m gonna spend my time and my energy on my family. I’m quite a reserved person, I don’t like putting out every single thing that I do with my family out on social media, so I just disappear from time to time. I know it’s not good [for the Warrington brand], because obviously things move on, and people forget about you. I’d like to think that when a big fight comes along, we can still draw the attention, [and be] the attraction.”
