{"id":287534,"date":"2025-11-28T08:21:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T08:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/287534\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T08:21:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T08:21:09","slug":"leigh-wood-josh-warrington-clash-in-heated-face-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/287534\/","title":{"rendered":"Leigh Wood, Josh Warrington clash in heated face-off"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leigh Wood and Josh Warrington re-ignited their fierce rivalry with a heated face-off on Thursday ahead of their rematch on Feb. 21 in Nottingham.<\/a><\/p>\n

Wood (28-4, 17 KOs), a former featherweight world champion and Warrington (32-4-1, 8 KOs), a former two-time world champion in the same division, will finally meet in long-awaited second fight early next year.<\/p>\n

Their rivalry has been simmering for two years since their first fight.<\/p>\n

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Wood beat Warrington with a dramatic Round 7 knockout in October 2023<\/a> after being down on the judges’ scorecards. Warrington was well in control of the bout, landing more punches than his rival.<\/p>\n

The two argued in their first meeting since the rematch was announced.<\/p>\n

“I don’t like him now. Since the first fight he never shown any respect. For me, did I fear Leigh going into the first fight? Probably not,” Warrington said.<\/p>\n

“I thought the fight was going as I expected it until Round 7. I’ve got to make sure the same mistake doesn’t happen again. Up until that moment I was having an easy night.”<\/p>\n

Leigh Wood (R) beat Josh Warrington via knockout in 2023.\u00a0Nick Potts\/PA Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Wood responded: “He won rounds but at what cost? It cost him the fight. If he wants to do that again, he can do that again.<\/p>\n

“I’m not even thinking about after this fight, I’ thinking about winning this fight. If I lost this fight, it takes away the credibility of the first fight. I don’t know if I’m going to fight again after this fight, I haven’t even thought about it. But for me, I need to win this fight.<\/p>\n

While their exchange began cordially, it soon became heated with the dislike between the two clear to see. There was also a long face-off with words exchanged after their interview.<\/p>\n

“You need to be perfect for 36 minutes, I need to be perfect for one or two seconds,” Wood said. “I’m going to hit you so f—— hard, I can’t wait.”<\/p>\n

Promoter Eddie Hearn made it clear how high the stakes are for the rematch.<\/p>\n

The first fight between Wood and Warrington was a British classic.\u00a0James Chance\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

“This fight should have happened a year ago. Warrington was bashing Leigh up and Leigh turned it around, stopped him,” Hearn said.<\/p>\n

“This is the last roll of the dice. You lose this fight, you’re done. They should both acknowledge that. The winner’s going to go on and have a big fight, the loser … They’re not going to want and build themselves back up.<\/p>\n

“Careers on the line, bad blood, Nottingham against Leeds, but most of all, a great fight.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leigh Wood and Josh Warrington re-ignited their fierce rivalry with a heated face-off on Thursday ahead of their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-287534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}