By Mark Eisner: WBA featherweight champion Leigh Wood (28-3,17 KOs) rallied to pull out a miracle seventh round knockout victory over Josh Warrington (31-3-1,8 KOs) on Saturday night at the Sheffield Arena in Sheffield, England.
In the seventh round, Wood caught Warrington with a right hand counter to stagger him. Wood then dropped Warrington after nailing him with a storm of shots.
Warrington’s legs were gone when he got back to his feet, causing referee Michael Alexander to waive it off. The time of the stoppage was at 3:00 of round seven.
Referee Alexander’s point deduction of Warrington in the seventh for punching behind the head seemed to cause him to fight wreckless. This enabled Wood to catch him with a right hand counter to hurt him.
Live boxing results of tonight’s action will be provided below for this compelling fight card.
- WBA junior middleweight female champion Terri Harper (14-1-2, 6 KOs) and former unified welterweight champ Cecilia Braekhus (37-2-1,9 KOs) fought to a ten round majority draw in the co-feature bout. The scores were 97-93 for Harper, 95-95, and 95. The 26-year-old Harper looked like she was on her way to victory through the eighth round. However, the 42-year-old Braekhus started sitting down on her power shots beginning in the ninth, landing some massive right hand power punches in the final two rounds to earn a draw. It’s a credit to Harper that she took those shots from Braekhus because they were the type that would have knocked out most fighters. Braekhus was clearly desperate by the championship rounds, knowing she was behind and needed a knockout.
- Middleweight Kieron Conway (20-3-1, 5 KOs) stopped Linus Udofia (18-2, 9 KOs) in the sixth round in a British title eliminator. Referee Howard Foster stopped the fight at 0:02 at the start of round six due to Udofia’s right eye having been closed. In this competitive contest, Conway, 27, did most of the damage to Udofia’s right eye with his powerful jab, and by the fifth, the fight looked like it needed to be stopped. Surprisingly, Foster waited until the start of the sixth to finally halt the contest despite having a perfect look at Udofia’s injured right eye at the end of the fifth. The defeat was Udofia’s second of his career. Last year, he lost to Denzel Bentley by twelve round split decision.
- Featherweight prospect Hopey Price (12-0,5 KOs) TKO’d previously unbeaten Connor Coghill (14-1,1 KOs) in the twelfth round in a British 126-lb title eliminator. Early on, it was a competitive affair, but then Price’s amateur pedigree took over at the midpoint in the contest, as he dropped Coghill in rounds six, eleven, and twice in the twelfth to get the knockout. The fight was halted after Price dropped Coghill with a right to the body in round twelve. Refeee Bob Williams then waived it off at 1:29 of the twelfth.
- Unbeaten junior middleweight prospect Junaid Bostan (7-0, 6 KOs) wore down and stopped Corey McCulloch (7-4-1, 2 KOs) by a sixth round TKO. The 21-year-old Bostan trapped the worn-down McCulloch against the ropes and unloaded a series of powerful headshots, causing referee Michael Alexander to step in to halt the fight. It looked like McCulloch had enough, as he wilted during the final sequence of the contest. The time of the stoppage was at 2:07 of round six. Bostan showed excellent power throughout, landing hard body shots that troubled the 29-year-old McCulloch more than anything.
Leigh Wood will be defending his WBA featherweight belt against a highly motivated Josh Warrington tonight in a fight that is expected to be a 12-round war from start to finish.
The action will be shown on DAZN tonight, beginning at 2:00 p.m. ET for U.S fans and at 7:00 p.m. in the UK from the Sheffield Arena in Sheffield.
As promoter Eddie Hearn predicts, ‘This ain’t going twelve rounds,’ and he could be right. Wood (27-3, 16 KOs) has dynamite in both hands, while Warrington’s in-your-face, nonstop high work rate could prove too much for Leigh.
Wood-Wood is a fight that has been heating up for years, and it’s finally here, and one that shouldn’t disappoint the fans.
Warrington (31-2-1,8 KOs) lost his last fight against Luis Alberto Lopez by a close 12 round decision last December, but he gave the Mexican warrior all he could handle in the second half of the contest.
Wood vs. Warrington = A classic war
“I think ready is the word. Mutual respect and a few little sound bites. Leigh Wood said that ‘I’m going to hurt him, I’m going to knock him out,'” said Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn to iFL TV about tonight’s contest between the hard-hitting WBA featherweight champion Leigh Wood & the tough-as-nails two-time 126-lb champion Josh Warrington.
“Josh wasn’t a fan of the Ferrari, but I think both guys, the one thing I see in their eyes are supreme confidence, and both guys, particularly Warrington, said it there, ‘I’ll win this fight inside the inside the distance.’ they truly believe both of them they win this fight by knockout.’
“I agree. This fight doesn’t go seven or eight rounds. It’s going to be a shootout. I think both guys are going to get hurt in the fight. It will be an absolute war and a true epic British battle.
“We know when it’s a good fight and when you’re doing shows every week, some are seven out of ten, some are a 10 out of ten. This is a 10 out of 10, and when I drive to the venue or when I sit down in my seat, the level of excitement is built around the quality of the fight and the card.
“When I look at this card from top to bottom, it’s a 10 out of 10, and that gives me a buzz. So you become immune to the disappointments of the sport and the frustration of the sport, but you never become immune to the excitement in the sport, the buzz in the
sport.
“When you walk out on Saturday, sometimes, as you know, we have a show, and you might curtain that standoff over there, and you know it’s a bit patchy up there. Saturday is going to be packed with people having a great night in anticipation of a true sporting event.
“Two British greats going head-to-head. The Leeds fans making noise; you can hear them in the concessions having a hot dog and a beer, chatting about Warrington. A lot of Nottingham fans getting ready with the traditional song for Leigh Wood’s walkout.
“It’s what we live for, but when you also create a fight, or you create an event, you’re selling the night, and when you’re selling a fight like Warrington-Wood, you can sell it with passion because you know it’s going to be a classic. This ain’t going to be a stinker,” said Hearn.