Home Boxing Interviews Part 1 of 3 | Lee Selby isn’t worried about Josh Warrington

Part 1 of 3 | Lee Selby isn’t worried about Josh Warrington

Photo Credit: Irfan Khan of lightsoutimages.com

Lee Selby will put his IBF World Featherweight Title on the line against underdog, Josh Warrington on May 19th.

Selby first fought for the IBF belt against Evgeny Gradovich in 2015. The score cards read Adalaide Byrd 72-80, Dave Parris , 73-79 Craig Smith 73-79 in Selbys Favour and he was crowned IBF champion.

Since an early setback in his fifth fight of his career against Samir Mouneimne, Selby has won a total of 22 fights in a row and picked up the BBBofC Welsh Area Featherweight Title, BBBofC Celtic Featherweight Title, BBBofC British Featherweight Title, Commonwealth (British Empire) Featherweight Title, WBC International Featherweight Title and the IBF World Featherweight Title along the way.

Selby has defended his title five times and will be looking to continue this against Warrington. Failure to do so would be a major setback in his career as huge pay days lay ahead for the Welshman.

Warrington is yet to taste defeat in his career and has beaten everyone he has faced in 26 of his fights. He will be looking to win the IBF title to push his career onto the next level, and victory against Selby would do that.

After a tough 2017 which saw the passing of his mother and grandfather inside a week, Selby was happy with his boxing career. He told Ringnews24.com:

“It hasn’t been too bad; I had three fights two world title defences. Made good dough and going into 2018 I’m still word champion – so it hasn’t been too bad.

Facing an undefeated fighter isn’t something new to Selby:

“This is the seventh or eighth undefeated fighter I’ve beat – he’s no different to any other.

“I don’t know many fighters who have beaten so many undefeated fighters. There can’t be many because I’ve beaten a lot of them.”

Selby didn’t think much of Warrington when asked to sum up his opponent:

“Decent work rate, decent hand speed – that’s about it.”

Fighting away from home in front of a hostile crowd doesn’t faze Selby. He added:

“Doesn’t bother me one bit, not one bit – it’s a fight at the end of the day.”

Josh Warrington said in a press release “He [Selby] thinks he’s a banger when he’s not. He puts far too much into his punches and then fades.” Selby replied:  “At 9 stone, I’m not a banger, but walking about now if I hit him on the chin I knock him spark out.”

Warrington also added “[Selby] is very busy for six rounds, snatches the early rounds, then protects the lead” when asked if it was a fair comment Selby commented, “No, it isn’t. Every fight I’ve won on points, I’ve won a unanimous decision not a majority. I’ve not had a majority decision as a professional. It can’t be right can it?”

The majority of both fighters fights have gone to the scorecards, would this be any different?

“I’m not sure. I’m not one for predicting fights, but when the final bell goes my hand will be raised.”

Part 2 coming soon…