By Charles Brun: Eddie Hearn is planning the rematch between Mauricio Lara and Josh Warrington for September 4th at the Headingley Stadium in Leeds.
This fight is a huge gamble for Warrington, who is betting on himself that he’ll be able to avenge his disastrous loss from last February.
If Warrington is right, his career will be back close to where it was before his upset defeat against Lara. Warrington and his fans can call write off his previous loss to his tune-up opponent Lara as a fluke thing.
Michael Benson of Talksport reports the news of the rematch, which is a highly questionable move for the 30-year-old Warrington.
Assuming Josh loses this fight to the little-known Mexican brawler Lara, it’s pretty much career over for the Leeds native. There will be no coming back.
Hearn thinks that by pushing the Lara – Warrington 2 fight to September, it’ll have full capacity at 100%. It could be, but what consolation will that be if Lara knocks Warrington out a second time?
Yeah, the payday for Warrington will be good, but he’ll be cutting himself off from years of nice money fights if he’s sent into retirement by the young Mexican slugger.
Lara is too big, too strong, and too young for Warrington. You could see that from the first minute of the fight, that won’t change in the rematch. I mean, Lara isn’t going to lose his power and lose his size and youth.
The UK government will need to give the green light for full crowds to attend sporting events for that to happen, and right now, it’s anyone’s guess whether that’ll happen.
Hearn needs to push the Lara vs. Warrington II rematch back as far as possible because that’s the only chance they have to stage the fight in front of a full crowd.
Additionally, it’s crucial that Warrington fight in front of his fans because he’s going to need them. Warrington looked out of sorts fighting Lara behind closed doors last February at the Wembley Arena in London.
Without the support that Warrington has grown accustomed to in battling in front of huge pro-Warrington crowds in Leeds, he wasn’t the same guy.
Where he really needed the fans is after the heavy-handed Lara shockingly dropped him in the fourth round. After that, Warrington looked like his confidence was gone and unable to keep the powerful Mexican fighter off him.
Scheduling the fight in September will give former IBF 126-lb champion Warrington (30-1, 7 KOs) more time to recover from the 9th round knockout he suffered at the hands of the unheralded 23-year-old Lara (22-2, 15 KOs) last month on February 13th.
Warrington needs to think hard about whether he really needs this fight with Lara right now. It would be better for Warrington to let Lara have his victory and move on to face other guys for two or three years.
Revisiting the rematch with Lara down the road would be the wiser move for Warrington than going straight into it like a drunken sailor. He should let Lara have his win and be smart about it. Some fighters are bad match-ups, and it’s that way with anyone.
Warrington matches up better against WBA ‘regular’ featherweight champion Can Xu than he does with Lara, and there’s more to gain taking that fight.