IBF featherweight champion Josh Warrington was the latest guest on Matchroom Boxing’s podcast, "The Lockdown Tapes." Warrington used his interview to say he hopes to meet WBA featherweight king Can Xu (18-2 3 KOs) in a unification clash when boxing returns. Warrington (30-0 7 KOs) recently reunited with Matchroom's Eddie Hearn, who recently revealed that a deal for the unification clash had been signed with the all-action Xu before the COVID-19 outbreak put a stop to all sports. Warrington hopes that the fight can be reignited once boxing is back in business and believes a showdown with the Chinese star would be yet another crowd-pleasing fight to add to his run of world title wins over the likes of Lee Selby, Carl Frampton and Kid Galahad.

 

“I feel like I have momentum with me now,” said Warrington. “I don’t want to have too long out of the ring, but everyone is in the same boat right now. I’m at the highest point and level of buy career, and you want to be as busy as you can be. You have to be 100 per cent every time you get in there at this level, you can’t blag it.

 

“Can Xu was the front-runner for my next fight and that’s where we ended before this started. Within the space of five days it went from ‘we could have an announcement’ to ‘it’s not happening any time soon’ because of the pandemic. I haven’t been down about it though; I’ve kept myself ticking over because I think that it’s still going to happen. He’s WBA champion, in his last fight he threw about 1400 punches, he’s a busy guy and you know what, you want to be part of memorable fights that people are excited about and people talk about and say ‘I’ve watched that fight so many times’.

 

“When I signed first pro contract, never did I think I’d be at a level where I would be boxing for multiple World titles, Ring magazine belts, getting BoxRec number one t-shirts. Now I am at this level, I think, why wouldn’t I want to take on the biggest challenges? Why not dare to be great and go on to these big fights? If I had it my way, I would fight champion after champion after champion. You just want to be part of exciting fights.”