Joe Cordina has spoken of his frustration at being inactive since the first defeat of his career.

It was last May when Cordina’s second junior lightweight title reign ended with an upset eighth-round technical knockout loss to Anthony Cacace. The Welsh star promptly declared that he had been fighting a losing battle with the scales for too long and would move up to lightweight.

Then Cordina was scheduled to fight Shakur Stevenson in October, but Stevenson suffered a hand injury. The fight was pulled and never rescheduled. Stevenson recuperated and has since been paired with Floyd Schofield on February 22. 

Cordina changed his training setup but has not managed to get a fight date since. He is working with new coach Barry Smith at the Ben Davison Performance Centre in Harlow and hoping for fight news soon.

“Well, I was told April, and then obviously I’ve seen a lot of the fights being announced on the [Conor Benn-Chris Eubank Jnr] card,” Cordina said. “So I messaged my manager [Spencer Brown] and he was just like, ‘Yeah.’ He didn’t say, ‘Yeah, it’s on there.’ I just said, ‘What’s happening?’ I said, ‘I’m training my bollocks off.’ He was like, ‘Don’t worry, I’m sorting it,’ so just fingers crossed. I’m just hoping to get out around about then.”

Cordina was previously being trained in Essex by Tony Sims but decided to – at the age of 33 and 17-1 (9 KOs) as a pro – change things up as he pushed on with his career post-Cacace.

“It’s going well,” Cordina said of the work with Smith, but he said it did not represent a fresh start in his career, just an opportunity to learn more. 

“It’s something to add to my toolbag that I’ve already got. You get me? All the tools that are already in my bag. So for me, it’s just about adding. I’m a fighter where I’ve got to where I’ve got to from the style I’ve had, and what’s the point in trying to change it completely? I think the best thing to do is just to add to what I’ve got and become a more complete fighter. I think a little change won’t do me any harm. That’s all. It’ll only do me well. If anything.”

But the inactivity is not ideal. Cordina cannot understand why he’s not been out since. 

He is a promotional free agent who has long ties to Matchroom Boxing and anticipates re-signing with Eddie Hearn’s team, but he will be open to other offers.

“Well, contract-wise [I’m a free agent], but obviously I’m going to start picking up with some of the promoters maybe in the next weeks, the weeks coming and seeing what’s on the table for me,” Cordina said. “Obviously Matchroom will be my first port of call because I’ve got a relationship with them prior, and then go maybe see what Queensberry and Boxxer and whoever else has got on the table.” 

Cordina, as an Olympian who competed in the 2016 Games, knows his worth and will not sell himself short, but he is not content with watching from the sidelines.

“This is the thing: I’m a two-time world champion, fucking won every title that there is to win, from amateurs to pro. And then now I’ve had one loss and you can’t get a fight, do you get me?” Cordina said. “But you can’t get a sniff at another big fight. It’s like, what do you want us to do? Start back at British-level and then work my way back up? 

“I was thinking it’s happened to so many fighters where they’ve lost world titles and they’ve jumped straight back into a big fight. And I just, I can’t get my head around it. I wouldn’t say a personal thing [or] I’ve been treated unfairly, but I just think the way it's worked out for me is, yeah, I think I’ve drew the short straw.”

With Cordina, too, it is not just that he is a good fighter. But he has been in good fights, and he’s scored a highlight-reel KO here and there. There was, for instance, the devastating one-shot right-hand finish of Kenichi Ogawa in 2022 and the 12-round war with Shavkatdzhon Rakhimov in 2023.

“No, listen, that's what's baffling me,” Cordina added, “I’m not known as a one-punch KO artist even though I’ve got one-punch knockout wins on my record, but I will always bring a good fight. I’ll never bore the place or stink the place out. I’ll never ever do that. So that’s another thing I can’t get my head around. And the thing is, as long as the deal’s right for me, I’ll fight anybody.”