Joe Cordina has teamed up with new coaches Ben Davison and Barry Smith to help him refresh his game before his lucrative title fight against WBC lightweight champion Shakur Stevenson on October 12th in Riyadh.
The former IBF super featherweight champion Cordina (17-1, 9 KOs) will need all the help he can get to make the improvements to defeat the defensive artist Shakur (22-0, 10 KOs) for their highly visible co-feature spot on the Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol card.
New Coaches, Same Old Problems
Unfortunately, 32-year-old Cordina’s move from trainer Tony Simms to Davison and Smith is equivalent to rearranging the chairs on a sinking ship. Those two aren’t going to work miracles for Cordina, who looked something awful in his recent eighth-round knockout loss to Ireland’s Anthony Cacace (22-1, 8 KOs) on May 18th in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Cordina made the 35-year-old Cacace look like the famed $350 million Hope Diamond, getting outboxed, battered and stopped in the eighth round of a fight that was never competitive, even for an instant.
The wily promoter Eddie Hearn’s selection of Joe Cordina for Shakur’s first fight of his two-fight deal with Matchroom suggests that he needs to boost his plummeting stock worldwide.
Hearn’s Blueprint: Boosting Stock with Catfish
The only way Hearn can do that is to follow the exact blueprint he used to raise the aging, fading fighter Anthony Joshua’s stock by feeding bottom-dwelling catfish to make him look rejuvenated. Yeah, it’s sneaky, but it works.
It’s an age-old trick the promoters use, and it works like a charm nine times out of ten to fool the gullible public. It’s definitely worked with Joshua because the fans think Ben Davison has improved him.
“I’ve partnered up with Barry Smith and Ben Davison. So, I’m down there now. It’s a good training environment. They train completely different to how we train and Tony [Sims],” said Joe Cordina to the Boxing News YouTube channel, talking about teaming up with new coach Ben Davison ahead of his October 12th title shot against WBC lightweight champion Shakur Stevenson in Riyadh.
Hopefully, Cordina has his eyes open and does not believe Ben will magically transform him into a fighter capable of beating anyone at 135, including Gervonta Davis. He must understand that Joshua hasn’t improved under Ben’s watch.
Cordina’s Best Hope: Unleash The Power
Cordina’s best hope for beating Shakur is to focus on his power game, and look to take his head off with every shot he throws. Shakur wouldn’t fight scared the way he does if he didn’t have a weak chin, and he looked bang average in his last fight against Artem Harutyunyan when he stood in the pocket last July.
If Shakur is brave enough to do that against Cordina, he’s got to take advantage of that. Shakur has pressure on him to be entertaining in his first fight with Matchroom, and this will be an audition to get a longer-term deal once his two fights are up.
“It’s something new. It’s freshen up. I’ve been there a week, and I believe, I’m going to excel under them. I’ve learned a lot already. Yeah, I’m looking forward to what the future holds for me. It just shows with the work they’ve done with AJ [Anthony Joshua] in how he’s come out in his last couple of fights. You’ve seen how Leigh Wood has went with them how he’s excelled,” said Cordina.
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