AT THE First Direct Arena in Leeds on Saturday, Josh Warrington embarks on the third defence of the IBF featherweight title he won in empathic style against Lee Selby at Elland Road in May 2018.

His opponent and challenger this time round is veteran French campaigner Sofiane Takoucht, who brings to the table an estimable record of 35 wins, 3 losses and 1 draw since making his professional debut in 2006.

Regardless, this an encounter that the teak-tough Yorkshireman is expected to deal with comfortably prior to heading across the Atlantic — no doubt accompanied by thousands of the true believers of his Hatton-esque cult following — to mix it with the best of the world featherweight crop under the bright lights in Las Vegas or New York.

Warrington is a refreshing, but all too rare, example of a fighter riding high on solid achievement and endeavour —  not on hype and media exposure. His standing as the current IBF featherweight champion tells only part of the story. The other and most important part of the tale is the manner in which he won the title and the manner in which he’s defended it since.

In the tradition of Marvin Hagler, the passionate Leeds fan applies himself to his work like a man who’s tasted the bitterness of being repeatedly overlooked — having worked in cruel anonymity for many desolate years in unfashionable gyms in unfashionable parts of the country. And as with Hagler too, the consequent insult to his sense of justice at being forced to watch lesser fighters receive more reward fuelled rather than weakened his desire. 

Coming up through the ranks, he didn’t tick the boxes of those slick marketing gurus and TV execs whose growing sway in the sport has arguably been to its detriment. Warrington stands instead as the archetypal throwback to an era when fighters did their talking with their mitts and disdained anything which so much as hinted at bullshit on the other side of the ropes. For such fighters a boxing ring is hallowed ground, pregnant with meaning and the potential for transcendence. Thus only the utmost reverence for the craft is acceptable.

Now having one after the other dispatched three of Britain’s best featherweights in many a year — Lee Selby, Carl Frampton and Kid Galahad — Warrington is enjoying the kind of acclaim he justly deserves after putting together a record of 29 victories in 29 fights.

Trained by his father Sean O’Hagan, a man who looks and sounds like he breeds whippets and exists on a diet of Woodbines, Warrington approaches his work with the urgency of a young man fighting with a tsunami at his back. He drags his opponents into the trenches from the first bell to the last — his intensity so immense that to fight him is to be forced to get acquainted with your inner child.

It’s a fair bet then that Sofiane Takoucht will cross the ring to face Warrington tonight like a man tiptoeing his way across a minefield, desperately trying to avoid hand grenades. Emerging from the experience intact will be a considerable achievement in what, at 13 years and counting, has been a longer career than most. 

David Price takes Parker’s slot against Chisora

One of the unique virtues of boxing is the way that even the most written-off fighter can, with one performance, turn critics into shuffling supplicants at a dictator’s feet after a failed coup.

This is the position Liverpool’s David Price found himself in after defying both the odds and the expectations of most in mercilessly battering Doncaster’s Dave Allen over 10 rounds in July, before the latter’s corner stepped in to save him from further damage. As it was, Allen was carted out of the ring and the arena on a stretcher — though thankfully only as a precautionary measure.

For Price, a laconic giant who — prior to his last outing against Allen — had seen his stock plummet to the point of becoming the heavyweight equivalent of a donkey turning up at the Grand National, the victory was no doubt sweeter than any he’d hitherto enjoyed. The sense of validation, both personal and professional, was evident in his bearing during the post-fight press conference — at which he was entitled to bask in the sound of words being swallowed and sight of hats being eaten. 

More than any single factor responsible for his lopsided victory over Allen was his jab, a weapon which in previous fights had all but abandoned him, but which against Allen he rediscovered like a man rekindling a relationship with his first true love.

Standing at 6’9”, ensuring that he protects this weapon as a man protects a fragile firstborn child will be key to the Liverpudlian’s chances of reproducing his Allen performance when it comes to Dereck “War” Chisora.

With former world champion Joseph Parker having pulled out of his clash against the latter, in a fight scheduled as chief support to Josh Taylor and Regis Prograis’s light welterweight title clash on October 26 in London, Price comes in as Parker’s replacement.

It is no stretch to claim that Chisora offers Price a whole new world of challenges to those Dave Allen did. Enjoying something of a renaissance himself, with a string of impressive performances to his name, the Londoner-by-way-of-Zimbabwe is one hombre for whom the word “vegan” is likely a profanity and whom you imagine consorts with the ghost of Sonny Liston on a nightly basis.  

In other words, he is mean where Price is laid back. He breathes malevolence where Price exudes fellow feeling. It’s why, on a certain level, this is a domestic heavyweight clash that has all the makings of public execution.

But then, that Price jab. When deployed, it’s a thing of beauty capable of slaying any beast.