By Scott Gilfoid: Former world title challenger Patrick Hyland (31-2, 15 KOs) will be playing the role of a spoiler this month when he faces undefeated featherweight contender #2 WBC, #5 IBF Josh Warrington (23-0, 4 KOs) in the main event on July 30 at the First Direct Arena in Leeds.
Warrington, 24, is in the prime position to get a world title shot against one of the featherweight champions. Warrington doesn’t figure to beat any of the champions. He doesn’t have the pop in his punches for him to do that in my estimation, but he’ll at least get a nice little payday. However, Hyland can act as the gatekeeper to prevent Warrington from getting his title shot if he can somehow beat him this month.
Hyland looked incredibly bad last April in losing to WBC World featherweight champion Gary Russell Jr. by a 2nd round knockout. Hyland was dropped on three separate occasions in round two of that fight before the bout was stopped with Hyland badly hurt on the canvas. Russell Jr. is a special talent though, so it’s not altogether surprising that he was able to KO Hyland in that manner.
Warrington has no power to speak of, is easy to hit, and he’s not particularly fast of hand. This is the perfect opponent for Hyland, because he actually does have some power. I rate Hyland’s punching power as well above Warrington’s.
“I’ve got a lot of fans coming over and the atmosphere is going to be electric,” said Hyland to skysports.com. “I’ve seen a lot of Josh’s fights and the noise is deafening so I can’t wait to be part of it. Gary Russell Jr is the best in the division. He is so, so fast and speed kills in this sport, but this is a different fight. I like how Josh fights and I’ve wanted to get in there with him to test him out and try to take that future world title shot that he’s looking at for myself. I think that we’ll end up standing toe-to-toe and giving the fans a real war.”
I agree with Hyland. I think this is going to wind up a war in a toe-to-toe affair. Warrington only knows how to fight in one way and that’s by slugging it out. In Warrington’s last fight against Hisashi Amagasa last April, Warrington actually needed to back off from the hard hitting Japanese warrior after getting nailed with some hard shots in the second of the contest. However, Warrington was still able to win the fight by a 12 round decision. I wasn’t impressed at all with Warrington in that fight. He was awful. It’s just that Amagasa was even more awful.