By Charles Brun: WBC super featherweight champion O’Shaquie Foster is ready to face newly crowned IBF 130-lb champion Joe Cordina in a unification fight next.
Cordina (16-0, 9 KOs) stated last Saturday night that he wants a unification fight next after he dethroned IBF champion Shavkat Rakhimov, beating him by a twelve round split decision in Cardiff, Wales.
Although Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn prefers that the 31-year-old Cordina take a soft defense against British fighter Zelfa Barrett, Joe wants to face another champion to try and capture another belt. It’s safe to say that Hearn would be the roadblock preventing Foster from fighting Cordina because he would know that it’s a fight that Joe can’t win.
The only champion at 130 that Cordina has a chance of beating is WBA belt-holder Hector Luis Garcia, and that’s only because he was softened up by Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis in his knockout loss to him last January.
WBO champion Emanuel Navarrete hits too hard, and his offense is too good for a fighter like Cordina. If Cordina was trouble against the light-hitting Rakhimov, just imagine what Navarrete would do to him. Believe me, it wouldn’t be a pretty picture.
Cordina didn’t say which of the three champions at super featherweight next, but Foster (20-2, 11 KOs) is letting him know that he wants to be the one that faces him.
Given how talented Foster is, Hearn will resist this fight with every ounce of his being, knowing what Cordina would be up against if he were to face the highly skilled Texan. Foster is on another level than Cordina.
Let’s do it 😈 we ain’t duckin nothing #big💨 https://t.co/GnzhYuu03u
— S H⚡️C K (@OshaquieFoster) April 23, 2023
It’s obvious from watching Foster school Rey Vargas, Muhammadkhuja Yaqubov, and Miguel Roman in his last three fights that he would give Coridina a boxing lesson if that match-up were made between them.
Cordina is arguably a six-round fighter, as we saw in his narrow twelve round split decision victory over Rakhimov last weekend. The Welsh fighter Cordina looked like a world-beater through six rounds, knocking Rakhimov down in the second round, but then he gassed out in the second half of the fight and was forced to run & hold the final six rounds to preserve his victory.
Rakhimov had Cordina hurt in the fifth round, and would have finished him if he had more power and an inside game. Cordina was holding on like mad after beinng hurt, which Rakhimov from finishing the job.
The scores were:
- 114-113 – Cordina
- 115-112 – Cordina
- 116-111 – Rakhimov
