{"id":242372,"date":"2025-07-06T09:46:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-06T09:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/242372\/"},"modified":"2025-07-06T09:46:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-06T09:46:12","slug":"cordina-eyes-big-fights-after-victory-on-comeback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/242372\/","title":{"rendered":"Cordina eyes ‘big fights’ after victory on comeback"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cordina added: “Winning the WBO global puts me top 15 in the world so if it’s the WBO title next so be it.<\/p>\n

“Whether it’s the belt holders \u2013 you’ve got Abdullah Mason and Sam Noakes fighting for the WBO.<\/p>\n

“You’ve got [Raymond] Muratalla the IBF champion, Gervonta Davis \u2013 whichever puts me in line to fight for one of those belts. I’ll take any of them.<\/p>\n

“I just want to be back in the big fights and the big shows \u2013 that’s what I’m in boxing for.”<\/p>\n

Cordina was first crowned a world champion boxer when he beat Kenichi Ogawa to claim the IBF super-featherweight title in an epic display in Cardiff in June 2022.<\/p>\n

But he was stripped of the title when he was unable to defend it within a 90-day window after suffering a broken hand.<\/p>\n

He then won it back with a hard-fought split-decision win over Shavkatdzhon Rakhimov in April 2023.<\/p>\n

After one successful defence, a majority decision win over Edward Vazquez, he lost the title to Northern Ireland’s Anthont Cacace in a surprise defeat in Saudi Arabia in May 2024.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Welshman had been due to make his comeback against Shakur Stevenson in October, but the WBC lightweight champion pulled out with a hand injury.<\/a><\/p>\n

Cordina had to dig deep against the quick-handed and spirited 24-year-old Mexican, who had previously only lost once in his professional career.<\/p>\n

But Cordina’s experience and boxing craft saw him through to a unanimous decision, with scorecards of 100-90, 99-91 and 98-92.<\/p>\n

“It was a test I needed,” Cordina told BBC Radio 5 Sport Extra.<\/p>\n

“There were three or four opponents sent to me and they were a lot easier than that one – I picked him solely on his punch power.<\/p>\n

“There was nothing to see of him and I couldn’t watch him to see how good he was but his punch power \u2013 13 knockouts out of 17 wins – I knew I had to be switched on.<\/p>\n

“I couldn’t take my eye off the ball even though with a bit of ring rust I managed to get the job done comfortably, so I was happy.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cordina added: “Winning the WBO global puts me top 15 in the world so if it’s the WBO…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-242372","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114805655728914968","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}