IN his two most recent contests, Josh Warrington has been the underdog. He wasn’t expected to wrest the IBF featherweight title away from Lee Selby in May last year, but he did. He wasn’t expected to successfully retain his belt against Carl Frampton seven months later, but he did.
This Saturday (June 15), at the First Direct Arena in his hometown of Leeds, the popular 28-year-old defends his crown for the second time in a fight that, for once, he is expected to win. But just as he overturned the odds against Selby and Frampton, his challenger this weekend – fellow unbeaten Kid Galahad – possesses the skills to potentially pull off an upset of his own.
There is a similarity
between the two Yorkshiremen in the way that they gradually worked their way to
world level the old-fashioned way. They each claimed the three major
stepping-stone straps to arrive at the top table – the British, Commonwealth
and European belts. While Warrington did so at featherweight, Galahad’s title
triumphs came at super-bantamweight. A drug suspension ended the Sheffielder’s
time at super-bantam, as since returning from the year-and-a-half ban in April
2016, he has settled in the feather division.