Josh Warrington says he feels the good kind of fear ahead of Anthony Cacace fight

Josh Warrington believes that a few extra pounds and a healthy amount of fear will help inject new life into his career when he faces IBF super featherweight champion Anthony Cacace at Wembley Stadium on September 21st.

Warrington, 31-3-1 (8 KOs), has spent his entire career campaigning at 126lbs but the two-time featherweight world champion isn’t feeling his way into his new weight division; he is stepping right in with one of the most physical, heavy-handed fighters currently operating at 130lbs. 

Cacace, 22-1 (8 KOs), is wiry, angular and the eight knockout victories on his record don’t do justice to his power. Those who know or have shared the ring with ‘The Apache’ have always earmarked him as a future champion but he has endured a frustrating stop-start career plagued by bad luck. In May, everything came together against Cordina as the 35-year-old produced a destructive performance, stopping the Welshman in eight rounds. 

Warrington, 33, revealed that if his career had played out differently, he would have made the move up in weight some time ago but that boxing politics and mixed results meant that it made more sense to continue working his way down to feather. 

“Originally I was gonna be moving up. I had the [Mauricio]Lara saga, then I had the opportunity with Kiko Martinez. I won a title there so that kept me at feather and then I had the defence against [Luis Alberto] Lopez. After that we were thinking, ‘What are we gonna do?’ It went on. We were gonna get another fight with Lopez, then another fight with Lara and then it ended up being [Leigh] Wood. It kept me there for another year,” Warrington told VIP Boxing. 

“I remember saying to myself, ‘Get through this one and I’m going to get Eddie [Hearn] to get me to America to fight Rey Vargas [who was then the WBC champion]. If not, I’m moving up in weight to fight Joe Cordina’ because when I signed with Eddie, I signed a three-fight contract. The fights were going to be Can Xu at Headingley for the Ring magazine belt. Then a defence in America. The third fight was going to be Joseph Diaz Jnr who at the time was the IBF super featherweight champion. So our intention has always been to move up, it’s just [figuring out] when the time was right to do so.”

Warrington hasn’t boxed since his exciting defeat to then-WBA featherweight champion Wood last October.  That night Warrington put together his best performance for some time but was dropped and – controversially – stopped at the end of the seventh round. He knows that another defeat will be hard to recover from but believes that the conditions are in place for another famous victory.

“It’s a fight at another weight, I’m feeling absolutely fantastic. I’ve looked at Anto, he’s a very respectable man. He’s looked me in the eye and said, ‘Josh, you’re gonna have to peel me off the canvas for me to lose this fight,’ but I know where I need to go. I’ve been there as well. I feared Lee Selby. I feared Carl Frampton. I didn’t fear Leigh Wood. I didn’t really fear Kid Galahad. They weren’t really my best performances. Listen, I was boxing Leigh Wood’s head off but when I train with that fear, I think it brings the best out in me. 

“Listen, I’m a massive underdog once again going into this one but don’t write me off, that’s all I’m saying. Don’t write me off.” 

John Evans has contributed to a number of well-known publications and websites for over a decade. You can follow John on X @John_Evans79