| ‘Welsh Wizard’ not bothered about bragging rights |
| Joe Cordina says Gavin Gwynne is in for the “shock of his life” when the Welsh rivals square off for the British and Commonwealth Lightweight titles at The O2 in London this Saturday, shown live on Sky Sports Box Office in the UK. Cordina stopped Andy Townend inside six rounds to add the Lonsdale Belt to his Commonwealth crown in Greenwich earlier this year. The unbeaten Cardiff stylist outclassed his experienced opponent from the first round, dropping him three times in the sixth round to extend his record to nine straight wins with his seventh knockout. Standing at 6ft tall and having boxed at both 135 and 140lbs, Gwynne will be the naturally bigger man on the night, but with a wealth of experience in his years in the amateur code, Cordina says this is nothing new and is unfazed by his opponent’s size advantage. “I bring the right sparring partners in all the time, it’s not the first time I’ve fought someone who’s been six foot,” said Cordina. “I’ve been boxing fighters who are long and rangy and taller than me since the amateurs. I’ve had sparring partners for this fight who are the same height and probably technically better than Gavin, I’ve got an answer for everything he brings. “All I’ve been hearing is how fit he is, and will I be able to handle the pace or whatever, this is my third fight scheduled for 12. I’ve trained for 12 rounds even when I was boxing in ten round fights. Gavin has only boxed ten rounds twice and he blew a gasket. When he’s got someone who is going to fight with him and will catch him you will see how he copes with that. Let him think what he wants, he will have the shock of his life. I have to win, and I have to do it in style. “We only sparred once and you can’t take too much from that as it was four rounds. It was five years ago so it’s irrelevant. This isn’t about bragging rights for me, my goal is to become a World Champion. If I win, I move on and I’ll never look back at him again. If he’s thinking about bragging rights then his ambitions clearly aren’t that big. For me, it’s about winning to get closer to my goal.” Cordina vs. Gwynne features on a huge night of boxing in the Capital. At the top of the bill, Olympic Champions Vasiliy Lomachenko (13-1, 10 KOs) and Luke Campbell (20-2, 16 KOs) will clash for the WBC, WBA, WBO and Ring Magazine Lightweight World titles, Manchester Heavyweight Hughie Fury (23-2, 13 KOs) takes on former WBA World Champion Alexander Povetkin (34-2, 24 KOs), rising Light-Heavy star Joshua Buatsi (11-0, 9 KOs) defends his WBA International title against Canada’s Ryan Ford (16-4, 11 KOs), James Tennyson (24-3, 20 KOs) and Atif Shafiq (21-2, 5 KOs) meet for the vacant WBA International Lightweight title, Hartlepool star Savannah Marshall (6-0, 4 KOs) makes her highly-anticipated Matchroom Boxing debut, Sheffield amateur standout Dalton Smith (2-0, 1 KO) takes part in his first six round contest and Hull Super-Featherweight prospect Connor Coghill (5-0) lands a dream slot on his former manager’s (Campbell) undercard. |
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