Kiko Martinez vs Josh Warrington On Saturday, 26 March

Kiko Martinez vs Josh Warrington On Saturday 26 March. IBF featherweight champion Kiko Martinez will take on Josh Warrington. In their rematch, next Saturday, 26 March, live on DAZN at the First Direct Arena in Leeds, England. The fight event kicks off at 3 pm ET on DAZN. Warrington beat Martinez by a controversial 12-round majority decision five years ago in 2017 at Leeds. Many boxing fans feel that the Spaniard Martinez has done more than enough to get the win. But with the fight taking place in Warrington’s backyard in Leeds. That may play an important factor in the results.

Kiko recently captured the 126-lb IBF title, stopping champion Kid Galahad in the sixth round in a heroic win in Sheffield, England. In 2021, Warrington vacated the IBF rather than face Galahad in a rematch. Galahad went on to win the vacant IBF title with an 11th-round stoppage over James Dickens last August. Having vacated his IBF title, Warrington was stopped by Mauricio Lara in the ninth round last year in February 2021. In the Lara-Warrington rematch last September in Leeds. The fight was declared a technical draw two rounds after Lara was cut off for a head clash.

Kiko Martinez’s defeat of Warrington in the 2017 fight

“Yeah, I think the judges made a big mistake in judging the fight the way they did. I felt I won the fight or, at the very least, it was a draw, but he didn’t win. You can’t win a fight by running. He was on his bike the entire fight. Go after him, and crush him, and win more convincingly than I did when I defeated him in the first fight. I feel I won the first one. But I had to go out and give more because I knew I wasn’t going to be given an easy or fair win.” Kiko Martinez told Matchroom Boxing about his loss to Warrington in 2017.

“So I knew I had to destroy it on March 26. Yes, that’s what motivated me to go to another country with everything against me with 15,000 against me, and silence them. That is what excites me, and I will silence all of Leeds once again. After the fourth round [in 2017], Leeds fell silent. They are silent. The arena was silent, and all you could hear was, ‘Ooh, ooh.’ I would do it again, but it would be worse. The positive thing is that he does a lot of combinations. He moves well and knows how to fight, he’s a very good boxer, and he’s very skilled. And his weakness is that he doesn’t hit hard.”

“He’s not a boxer who hits hard. He didn’t hurt you. I promised my family if I lost, I would retire. And I think he will do the same. I think he has the same obligations as me, win or retire. So I feel we are now at a point after five years of ending our careers. And I don’t think any of us should be doing that at the moment,” Martinez said.

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