Josh Warrington says he wants newly crowned WBA featherweight champion Mauricio Lara to try to send him into retirement like he’s been saying that he wants to do.
Warrington was furious last Saturday night after Lara (26-2-1, 19 KOs) spit on him after his seventh round knockout win over Leigh Wood at the Motorpoint Arena in Nottingham, England.
Josh says he can’t handle being called names, but when a person spits on him, it’s the final straw.
Right now, it’s still yet to be determined whether Warrington will get the fight against Lara next because Wood (26-3, 6 KOs) has a rematch clause, and he’s already said that he plans on using it to force Lara to fight him.
Promoter Eddie Hearn and trainer Ben Davison will need to sit down with Wood to make a decision on whether to take the immediate rematch with Lara or let him face Warrington (31-2-1, 8 KOs) next in a trilogy fight and then face the winner.
Either way, Lara will be returning to the UK in his next fight, be it against Warrington or Wood, according to Hearn.
Warrington dares Lara to retire him
“After the fight, he comes over and half pulls himself out of the ring and then pulls himself back in and then spits at me. The dirty b***ard,” said Josh Warrington to Secondsout about Mauricio Lara.
“I can take the shouting & screaming. Once you start spitting at people, it’s the lowest. He wants to retire me, doesn’t he? It’s personal between me and him. F***ing retire me then. Put me into retirement,” Warrington continued about Lara.
“I’m asking him now. If you’re watching this now. Put me into retirement. Put me into retirement in the third one. Let’s have it.
“We’ve seen his strengths. We’ve seen his weaknesses. He’s f***king basic, but he’s got power,” said Warrington about Mauricio Lara. “What happens when you nullify him? It’s when you allow him to have time. What if you take that away and put more pressure on him when he starts to tire?” said Warrington.
Josh willing to fight in Mexico
“100%,” said Warrington when asked if he’d be willing to fight Lara in Mexico. “That would be a double whammy. Mexico or America. That’s all that has been on my mind since February 2021.
“100%,” Warrington said when asked if he was still interested in fighting Leigh Wood. “I have respect for Leigh outside of the ring. Domestically, it’s a brilliant fight. We both have got a lot of followers behind us.
“He got caught with one big shot. It’s boxing. He’s not finished. He’s not done, is he? He was winning the fight. I’m a man of my word. Fight Lara, beat Lara, and I’d fight Wood after that.
“The way the fight was going is exactly how I thought the fight was going to go. Lara, I actually thought he’d start a little faster in rounds one, two, and three. He had a good second round, but from the second round onward, he was a bit quiet.
“I expected him to be a bit more ferocious, but he was a bit more wary. I thought Leigh would get to him and start breaking him down in the second half of the fight, and he started doing it a little bit earlier.
“I would have liked to have seen Leigh step up the pace a little bit because he was having success when he was throwing those shots. Maybe that’s why he was having success because he was picking them well. I felt he could have been forced a little bit more.
“Whenever a man is in there and has got a dig, then he’s always dangerous. Initially yeah,” said Warrington when asked if he agreed with Ben Davison stopping the fight in the seventh.
“I would have wanted him to carry on. I had nine rounds against Mauricio Lara,” said Warrington.