Lee Selby vs. Josh Warrington weigh-in results

Boxingnews24.com

By Scott Gilfoid

IBF World featherweight champion Lee Selby (26-1, 9 KOs) weighed in at 125 ¾ pounds on Friday for his title defense against #1 IBF Josh Warrington (26-0, 6 KOs) on Saturday night at the Elland Road Football Ground in Leeds. Warrington, 27, weighed in at slightly less at 124.9lbs.

The good news is the winner of the Selby-Warrington fight will be facing Carl Frampton next. For boxing fans that have been waiting year after year for Warrington and Selby to finally face someone good, they’ll finally get their wish. It’s going to be nice to see how well the Selby-Warrington winner holds up under the fire power of Frampton.

I can’t see either of them beating Frampton, but I don’t think they would beat Scott Quigg or Joseph Diaz Jr. either. There are levels to the featherweight division, and I see Selby and Warrington as occupying a lower level to that of Frampton, Quigg and Diaz Jr. It’s still hard to believe that Selby has a world champion for almost three years now, because many boxing fans assumed that he would smashed immediately after winning the IBF 126lb. title three years ago in 2015. But that’s the beauty of match-making.

If you’ve got a clever promoter, who is skilled at picking out the right opponents (read: soft jobs), then you can hold onto your world title for a lot longer than you would if you were matched against a quality opponent. In Selby’s case, I see his reign ending abruptly once he gets inside the ring with Frampton.

As for Warrington, he’s likely to lose on Saturday night when he gets inside the ring with Selby. However, you can’t rule out Warrington winning the fight. He’s fighting in his hometown in Leeds, and that counts for A LOT, believe me. You can argue that Warrington will win all close rounds if there are any. Poor Selby might even need a knockout to win, and that’s obviously not going to happen because he can’t punch at all. Asking Selby to knockout anyone is like asking the impossible. He doesn’t have the power, and his legs are always ready for him to dash away. It’s too bad though, because if the Selby-Warrington fight goes to the scorecards on Saturday, I don’t see how Selby can win. Having seen the crazy scoring of the Warrington-Martinez and Warrington-Amagasa fights, I don’t see Selby having any chance of winning a decision on the night. Selby is going to be miserable and hopping mad after the fight if he winds up losing a hometown decision, but he should have his eyes open going into the fight. I mean, if Selby isn’t aware of what he’s stepping into on Saturday night in going into Warrington’s hometown of Leeds, then shame on him. This should have already been impressed upon Selby to let him know what he’s up against in this fight.

The two fighters had an intense face off moments after weighing in. With his IBF belt over his shoulders, the 5’8 ½” Selby looked considerably taller than the 5’7” Warrington. I wouldn’t say Selby looked bigger than Warrington, just taller. Warrington had a cocky on his face, as if he’s got the victory in the bag already. That look of confidence from Warrington is born of 9 years of largely soft opposition. Warrington has won all his fights since turning pro in 2009, but he’s done it against mostly mediocre opposition. Warrington’s toughest fights have come against Kiko Martinez, Hisashi Amagasa, Joel Brunker, Dennis Ceylan and Kiko Martinez.

Warrington barely beat Martinez last year in May in winning a close 12 round majority decision. Warrington hasn’t been matched against the better fighters at 126, like Joseph Diaz Jr., Carl Frampton, Nonito Donaire, Genesis Servania and Scott Quigg. I seriously doubt Warrington could beat any of those fighters, which you can argue is why he wasn’t put in with them. They would all likely knock him out.

Selby is in the same situation though. He’s not been facing good opposition, especially since he became the IBF 126 lb. champion. The 31-year-old Selby won the IBF title in May 2015, beating Evgeny Gradovich by an 8th round technical decision. After the fight, Selby said he would make some voluntary defenses of his IBF title before eventually going after the tougher fighters like Carl Frampton.

Here are 3 years later and Selby still hasn’t fought any of those tougher featherweights like he spoke of fighting. It’s shocking that Selby hasn’t fought anyone good since winning the IBF title, and you’ll still be able to say that after Saturday, because Warrington is not among the elite in the featherweight division. He’s just a padded record in my view.

Selby’s 4 successful title defenses of his IBF belt have come against these fighters:

• Eduardo Ramirez – Who?

• Jonathan Victor Barrios – a 34-year-old fighter that has previously been beaten by Mikey Garcia, Juan Carlos Salgado, Yuriorkis Gamboa and Celestino Caballero

• Eric Hunter

• Fernando Montiel – way past his prime when he fought Selby. Montiel arguably didn’t deserve a title shot against Selby

Sandwiched in between his title defenses against Hunter and Barros, Selby fought little known Ardoni Gago (16-2-2) in a non-title fight in March 2017. It’s unclear why the International Boxing Federation allowed Selby to make a non-title defense against a guy that clearly had no business fighting him. It would seem the obvious thing for the IBF to have done would have been to strip Selby of his title when he opted to take a low-level fight against Gago, but for some reason they didn’t do that. Selby was able to take a soft opponent while the contenders in the IBF’s top 15 rankings had to sit and wait for him to get the fight over with. It was obviously a bad deal for them and a great one for Selby.

As far as interest from the boxing public goes, it might be better for Warrington to win on Saturday, because that would setup a far more interesting fight between him and Frampton. Selby’s style of fighting is hard on the eyes due to his constant movement. At least in Warrington’s case, he’ll stand and fight. It’ll be a lot more entertaining of Warrington faces Frampton.

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