For Josh Warrington tonight, defeat is not an option. Some believe he is taking a huge gamble when he faces Mauricio Lara in a rematch at Headingley rugby ground in Leeds. He is effectively gambling his career on it. Win and he can once again think of big fights ahead, a trip to Las Vegas with his massive fanbase. Lose… well it doesn’t bear thinking about. 

“It doesn't even enter the mind this going wrong,” the former IBF featherweight champion said. “I just have to make sure I box as I can do, box as I know I can, box as I have been sparring. 

“If you look down my resume, and look down Mauricio's resume, he hasn't been in with the same kind of class. When you look at the people I’ve beaten over the years – boxers like Lee Selby and Carl Frampton, awkward fighters like Kid Galahad, fighters like Dennis Ceylan, come-forward fighters like Kiko Martinez. I've mixed with the world's best with all different attributes and I don't think Mauricio's attributes line up to these.  

“Whatever happened on February 13, it was just how I approached the fight with my mindset but this time it will be different.” 

Warrington will never forget that night in February. Having not boxed at all in 2020 – when a potential fight against then WBA champion Can Xu at Headingley was arranged then scrapped – his hope of a unification fight were then scuppered and faced with an IBF order for a rematch with Galahad or losing the title, he handed the belt back in the hope that bigger fights awaited. 

But when the Xu fight fell through again, in stepped Lara, seen as a perfect opponent to shake off the ring rust with a May date booked in for that big fight.  

The May fight never happened. Lara landed early and gave Warrington a fearful battering in the fourth round. While the wise thing might have been to end things there, his fighting spirit kept him going until the ninth round when he was battered to the floor again. A broken jaw, perforated eardrum and damaged shoulder were Warrington’s souvenirs of that night. 

He didn’t need to face Lara again. There were other, possibly easier, routes to re-establish himself, but Warrington was keen to try and wipe out the memory of February.

“I never thought I would overlook anybody,” Warrington said. “I’ve always had the mindset of it doesn’t matter if I was fighting Mickey Mouse or whoever, they are dangerous. You guys know what the boxing game is like, it’s like a game of snakes and ladders. You can land on a big snake and you’re back to the start.

“So I always treat every opponent as my biggest fight. But I think in that week in the bubble, my face was plastered all over, in the lift, on the walls, I maybe believed my own hype. 

“I thought let’s blast this guy out, get back home and get ready for the Xu fight. Obviously, my approach to the fight was just a hundred mile an hour, that would do the job, he won’t be there after six rounds. I never thought about what he could actually do and I paid the price for that.”   

Warrington says that much of training has been spent concentrating on his boxing, something that was neglected in the last fight. 

“A lot of people think ‘he’s got an engine, he comes forward, he throws loads of punches’ but not many people talk about my defense,” he said. “Normally I don’t take too many punches in a fight. Not many people talk about my footwork. When I went on that barrage in the first few rounds against Frampton, watch it back, watch my feet, the way I’m stepping round him every time I throw a three-punch combination, I’m moving round to avoid the punches.

“A few years ago, I was absolutely flying. I’ve gone through every single style – tall fighters, short fighters, come-forward, boxers, awkward fighters, southpaw, orthodox. Whatever style, I’d always found a way to win.  

“Maybe I got a little bit complacent and when you look at fights from Selby, Frampton, I know Galahad was more of a technical chess match, but the way I just blasted out Takoucht – I know he was not as high as their level – but I thought: ‘I’m hitting harder than ever now, I’m seasoned, I know how to see these fights for 12 rounds taking the same approach – fast start, loads of punches, I’ll just break them down’.  

“It’s given me a little bit of a kick up the backside: don’t forget about your other attributes, your boxing, you can move, your defence… so we’ve gone back to the blackboard and polished ourselves up a bit.” 

Ron Lewis is a senior writer for BoxingScene. He was Boxing Correspondent for The Times, where he worked from 2001-2019 - covering four Olympic Games and numerous world title fights across the globe. He has written about boxing for a wide variety of publications worldwide since the 1980s.