Josh Warrington vs. Joel Brunker this Saturday in Leeds

By Boxing News - 08/31/2015 - Comments

By Scott Gilfoid: This Saturday night on September 5th, No.8 IBF Josh Warrington (21-0, 4 KOs) will be putting his unbeaten record on the line against #9 IBF Joel Brunker (28-1, 16 KOs) in a 12 round bout at the First Direct Arena in Leeds, UK. Warrington will be defending his WBC International and Commonwealth featherweight titles in this fight.

What Warrington, 24, is trying to do in beating the 29-year-old Australian is to work his way to a world title shot against IBF featherweight champion Lee Selby. That’s a fight that the light hitting Warrington will likely get if he beats Brunker this Saturday night.

“It’s what keeps getting mentioned [a fight against Selby] and I’m not going to turn around and say I’m not interested in the fight,” Warrington said via skysports.com. “It definitely whets the appetite, but I’ve got to get through this one on Saturday.”

Well, given that there are a number of higher ranked contenders ranked above Warrington, I don’t think he would rate a world title shot even if he beats Brunker. I mean, we are talking about Warrington bring a fringe contender still. He should at least beat someone with some talent who wasn’t recently beaten. I’m just saying. The last time I checked, Brunker was stopped in the 9th round last October by Selby.

I don’t see how a victory over the likes of Brunker should automatically put Warrington into a world title shot. Yeah, he beat a journeyman since then named Ray Laspinas (20-11-5, 12 KOs), but he didn’t beat a live body for Brunker to be used as a launching pad for a world title shot against Selby.

I think Warrington still needs to beat these guys before he rates a world title shot:

3. Eric Hunter
4. Jonathan Barros
5. Jayson Velez
6. Satoshi Hosono
7. Evgeny Gradovich

Warrington needs to wait his turn, and get in line like the rest of the contenders. When/if Warrington defeats those five contenders, then and only then do I see him worthy of being given a world title shot against Selby, but for right now, he’s got five guys in front of him.

If Warrington can’t beat those guys then oh well, he doesn’t deserve the title shot against Selby. I’m tired of all these inexperienced over-matched low ranked bottom dwellers getting put to the head of the class for undeserved world title shots after beating fluff opposition. This kind of stuff leads to mismatch after mismatch, and it’s not good for the boxing fans to be seeing all these awful fights.

The guy that Warrington should be fighting to get a world title shot is the recently beaten Abner Mares. If Warrington could beat the likes of Mares, which I highly doubt, then he can skip fighting those five contenders in front of him. But unfortunately, I think Mares would totally obliterate the light hitting Warrington and make it look so easy in doing so.

There’s not much on Warrington’s resume right now in terms of quality opponents. Actually, I don’t see anyone he’s faced that I can call remotely a good fighter, and I’ll still feel that way after this Saturday. I don’t recognize Brunker as being a talented fighter.



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