Warrington’s the fisher king who can’t land fellow world champs They just won’t bite
JOSH IN MARKET FOR A BIG CATCH
JOSH WARRINGTON is still trying to find the right bait to hook his next opponent after Shakur Stevenson signed to fight Miguel Marriaga.
The IBF featherweight champ had been hoping for a unification fight against WBO top dog Stevenson (below) in May.
But on Wednesday the American agreed to face Colombian Marriaga next month, making it highly unlikely he will be out again two months later – leaving Warrington, 29, looking for another champion to pit his wits against.
In the meantime, the frustrated Leeds Warrior is having to keep his mind active by focusing on his new tropical fish tank.
Injured
Warrington said: “I love football, but I haven’t played since
2016 as my insurance policy would not cover me if I got injured.
“I go to the driving range, I’m trying to get into golf. I like to try learning new things.
“I have just bought a fish tank. It has been sat there for five months with no water in it, but I’m reading up on it. It will be for tropical fish and freshwater fish.
“My dad has a tank with some marine fish in it but I don’t want to follow his route. Two minutes and he will be telling me what to do with it.”
The fact that Warrington’s fellow world champions don’t seem to want to fight him is frustrating.
He added: “There’s the ideal world, but that is one thing – and in boxing, as I found out many years ago, things never run as smoothly as they should.
“All you can do is win your fights in order to progress and make things happen.
“But even having a massive fanbase, an unbeaten record and bringing a world title to the table doesn’t always get you what you want.
Unification
“We are at the stage where we are trying to get unification fights sorted, but since me winning the world title, two of the other champions, Leo Santa Cruz and Oscar Valdez, have moved up. Stevenson has picked up the WBO belt and Xu Can is the WBA regular champion.
“They say they’re game, but when it comes to signing the papers it’s different.
Capable
“All I want to do in my next fight is unify the division, to win another world title, and I know I’m capable of beating any other world champion.
“If I’d had a Christmas list it would have been Gary Russell Junior, because he’s one of the longestreigning world champions in all the divisions.
“Then Xu Can, because in his last fight he threw 1,500 punches. That makes me drool — we’d have a right good ding-dong, we wouldn’t stop throwing punches.
“Then Stevenson. He’s a young whippersnapper and a former Olympian. And he’s good with his gob.
“I just want to win another belt to make myself unified champion, and then after that I’d be looking for super-featherweight fights.”