Josh Warrington said he and his promoter Eddie Hearn are ready to move on towards another fight in December because the injured Mauricio Lara likely won’t be able to fight because of the cut he sustained last weekend.
Former IBF featherweight champion Warrington (30-1-1, 7 KOs) said he’ll wait a little while to see if Lara (23-2-1, 16 KOs) can make a quick return by January. But if now, Warrington will move on.
Lara suffered a bad cut over his left eye in the second round from a clash of heads with Warrington. Unfortunately, the cut was too bad for the fight to be allowed to continue.
The chances are low that Lara will be able to return in the next three months to fight Warrington for the third time.
Warrington isn’t saying who he’ll fight next, but his promoter Eddie Hearn said he’d like to match him against Leo Santa Cruz.
Warrington Wants To Fight In December
“I’d like to go out at Christmas time. That would be ideal,” said Josh Warrington to iFL TV. “I expected him to come out and be a bit more aggressive in the first round.
“He seemed reserved. I wanted him to come forward. I wanted him to throw punches and go wild, and the only way to do that was to box.
“We got a little trade in the second round, and I was a little bit wild. But compared to the first fight when I did get caught with shots, it just wasn’t having the same effect as the first fight.
“Even the shots that were landing clean, they weren’t shaking me to my boots like they were the first time,” said Warrington.
December is a reasonable amount of time for Warrington to rest up and begin training.
Josh Believed He’d Have Won
“Everything seemed to be going perfect, but we’ll never know, I guess,” Warrington continued. “I am thinking more about getting out before Christmas and then done waiting for him if he can’t turn around quickly.
“From the first round, I got a little bit of satisfaction. After the first round, this guy isn’t in my league.
“That’s why I was number one for two years. I was the #1 guy in the featherweight division. That’s why I felt unbeatable.
“When I’m on it, I’m on it. The longer this fight goes on the more this will come out. I think if the fight had gone on, I’d have done the business.
“If he [Hearn] says he’s going to be out until next springtime, ‘Eddie, what’s the next option?'” said Warrington.
There weren’t enough rounds to tell who the true winner would have been last weekend between Warrington and Lara. Most boxing fans believe that with the way the second round went, Lara would have knocked Warrington out at some point.
The head-butting that Warrington did arguably saved him from getting knocked out in front of the 20,000 pro-Warrington fans that showed up to see him fight at Headingly Stadium in Leeds.
We’ll never know for sure who would have won the fight because it didn’t last long enough.
Assuming Josh is serious about wanting to fight Lara again, he’s going to need to make sure we don’t see another head-butt stoppage.
If this happens a second time, the few boxing fans that believe that Lara’s cut was from an accidental head-butt by Warrington will change their opinion.
They’ll believe that Warrington intentionally head-butted Lara to save himself from being knocked out again.