Warrington will face Galahad after all

LEEDS’S Josh Warrington will make his second defence of the IBF featherweight title against Sheffield’s Kid Galahad after promoter Frank Warren won a purse bid to stage the fight.

Warren is preparing to stage a meeting with Galahad, the mandatory challenger for Warrington’s belt, despite appearing to dismiss the option of a bout between them after Warrington retained his title by outpointing Carl Frampton in Manchester in December.

Galahad, whose unbeaten professional career was interrupted by a ban for doping, attempted to enter the ring at the end of Warrington’s brilliant win over Frampton, but was stopped by security.

Speaking immediately after the fight, Warren said: “Any fight which Josh is in now is appealing. If you had the list, that list of fights, and you wrote it on a length of wallpaper, that (Galahad) would be at the bottom.”

Warrington spoke of heading to America for his next bout having beaten both of his leading domestic rivals at nine stone, Frampton and Lee Selby, in the space of seven months.

He targeted Mexican WBO champion Oscar Valdez, who returned from a broken jaw to stop Italian Carmine Tommasone in the US on Saturday, but would have faced the threat of being stripped of his IBF belt had he refused to entertain Galahad.

Qatar-born Galahad, 28, won the British, Commonwealth and European at super-bantamweight and has a perfect 26-fight record. A date and venue would be “confirmed soon,” said Warren.