By Charles Brun: Joe Cordina says he wants a unification next after re-capturing his IBF super featherweight title with a twelve round split decision victory last Saturday night against champion Shavkat Rakhimov at the Cardiff International Arena in Wales.
Cordina (16-0, 9 KOs) isn’t saying which of the 130-lb champions he wants to face for a unification, but predictably Joe’s promoter Eddie Hearn will match him against WBA champ Hector Luis Garcia (16-1, 10 KOs) because he’s coming off an eighth-round stoppage defeat against Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis last January.
Hector, 31, is arguably the most beatable one of the three champions at super featherweight and the only one that Cordina would have a chance of beating.
Cordina’s options for unification
- Hector Luis Garcia – WBA
- O’Shaquie Foster – WBC
- Emanuel Navarrete – WBO
There’s very little chance that Cordina would beat Foster or Navarrete because those solid guys would take advantage of his poor gas tank by knocking him out.
If Rakhimov had any power, he would have done the job on Cordina by stopping him. Foster & Navarrete aren’t going to fight Cordina in his backyard in Cardiff.
So if that’s a condition for them fighting him, he will be out of luck because they won’t put themselves in the same boat that Rakhimov did and receive similar treatment with the scoring.
Cordina barely defeated Rakhimov (17-1-1, 14 KOs) in the eyes of many boxing fans, and many had him losing.
If the fight hadn’t taken place in Cordina’s hometown of Cardiff, he might have come out as the loser because he totally gassed out in the second half of the contest and was badly outworked.
Watching Cordina run from Rakhimov in the final 20 seconds reinforced the belief that he didn’t do enough to win and didn’t deserve the victory. The scores were 114-113 and 115-112 for Cordina and 116-111 for Rakhimov. Charles Brun gave it to Rakhimov 7-5.
“Nah, he’ll have to wait. I want a unification, especially with the opponent he fought tonight [Jason Sanchez]. It wasn’t top. So he has to get himself back in the mix before me consider him,” said Joe Cordina to iFL TV about him wanting a unification at super featherweight next rather than a title defense against #8 IBF Zelfa Barrett.
“Don’t get me wrong. It will happen down the line, but he has to be a meaningful fight, but at this present moment, it ain’t. I got more meaningful and bigger & better things to be chasing.
“I don’t know what he was smoking,” said Cordina about the judge that scored it 116-111 for Rakhimov. “I thought two or three rounds I was up, and I was confident that as soon as the bell went, ‘Yeah, that’s me. Two-time world champion.’
“When he read that, I was like, ‘Oh my God, what is going on here?’ And I thought they were going to shaft me, but it wouldn’t have been pleasant for them if they did, especially because I genuinely believe I won and a lot of people I won. You could just see it when the bell went by everyone’s reaction that I won the fight,” said Cordina.
