In his last three fights, Leigh Wood was in an Upset of the Year contender, a Fight of the Year contender and a Knockout of the Year contender.
In his Fight Camp victory over Xu Can for the WBA featherweight title, Wood pulled off a wonderful shock. Then, he scored a stunning last-ditch win over Michael Conlan but in February was stopped in dramatic fashion by Mexican banger Mauricio Lara.
Wood and Lara rematch in Manchester on Saturday (May 27) and when asked about if anything other than an exciting fight should be expected, Wood joked: “I do love a good scrap. Obviously, you’d rather be on the dominant side of things but it’s what the fans want, isn’t it?”
Wood was leading on the cards and boxing well against Lara before being undone by the visitor’s left hook. Lara left with the WBA belt, Wood was left kicking himself. But he had a rematch clause, and now he knows what to expect.
“We knew he was going to come out fast and explosive like he does, he tries to get the job done early, he doesn’t like going the rounds,” Wood explained. “But initially weathering that storm [in the first fight], as we knew we’d have to, then it got down to the game plan, controlling him and getting him down the stretch… Everything was going to plan and I just got caught with that shot.”
It was a extraordinary punch, the type many thought Lara had in his locker, but one Wood’s army of Nottingham fans hoped they would not see. Was it a matter of Lara doing something well and finding the shot, or was it a matter of Wood losing concentration?
“It was none of those things really,” said Wood. “I was having a lot of success in rounds five and six and I was landing some big shots, and as the rounds went on the shots were getting bigger and my prep was getting less. He’s a counterpuncher, you know, so I started to land my left hook a lot. He was basically trying to slip my right hand and I was throwing my right hand then feinting my right hand and throwing my left hook. So I feinted my right hand, because I caught him with a right hand before that. He did a slip left hook and I feinted with my right shoulder, kept my feet there to land a bigger left hook and he obviously went slip left hook and I threw my left hook and bang.”
That was that and after 2-54 of the seventh round, 25-year-old Lara – now 26-2-1 (19) – was the new champion, scalping his second British champion having beaten Josh Warrington back in 2021.
Wood is 26-2 (16) and the 34-yearold former champion said that despite the violent ending to the first Lara fight, he did not think Lara’s power was everything it had previously be made out to be. Not referring to the final shot, he said that overall Lara’s shots were spiteful but not of the battering ram variety he thought they would be.
“He was more sharp and fast than actual thudding weight behind shots,” Wood continued. “Obviously I caught a lot of shots early, I was blocking shots off [trainer] Ben [Davison] all week on my guard and he was bruising my arms and so when I got in there, they [Lara’s shots] weren’t too bad. And the shot I got caught with, I feinted to go and I slipped onto the shot full force, so that’s two forces together, and that’s never a great combination! He is sharp and he can dig, but I did expect him to be more concussive, if that makes sense.”
Wood has shown he can box well under pressure. The victory over Xu Can was unexpected but it was resounding and a dominant display. Wood needed to show a different type of discipline that night.
“The discipline with the Can Xu fight,” he considered, “he would have been quite easy to hit early on, and catch him with shots, but the discipline with the Can Xu fight was not blowing too much and not spending too much energy early, because he [Can] is a volume puncher, he can do the rounds really well. He has got a high workrate, so reducing his output but not getting carried away with myself to the point that I was talking every opportunity that I get, because then I’d have gassed.”
The discipline needed for Lara is similar in that he needs to be switched on every second and he can’t afford to give Lara free shots at an exposed target. By Wood’s own admission, he thought things were going so well that he took his eye off the ball and then it was soon all over. He felt Lara fading, he thought he was landing more and taking control and just like that the Mexican had his belt.
“That’s exactly why I was putting big shots in, because he was gassing, he was breathing heavy, he was running out of ideas,” explained the Nottingham man. “In hindsight, I should have just kept doing what I was doing. It’s frustrating, but I started to land those bigger shots, then more bigger shots and I kind of got drunk on my own success a little bit. You can’t do it with kids like that, who can whack you. You need to keep doing what you’re doing and stay disciplined and I learned a valuable lesson in that.”
After the fight, Lara turned his attentions to Warrington and spat at his old rival who was ringside. Lara-Warrington, of course, had previous unresolved issues from their two fights but the Mexican crossed a line. Warrington wants a third meeting with Lara, but Wood never feared that he would be skipped over in favour of Lara opting to face Warrington instead.
“Not really, I had that rematch clause,” Wood said. “So there’s nothing they could have done without my say-so. I don’t know if he [Lara] did that on purpose because Josh is an easier fight than myself, I don’t know. I don’t know why he did that. It was bad for boxing to do that. I don’t know if he did that thinking it would draw more attention and he could swerve my fight? I don’t know, but there’s no room for that. It’s a respectful sport, I don’t know if Josh said anything to him to cause that, but it’s not a good look.”
Sometimes after a loss, the axe falls on a trainer and the coach is hung out to dry and the fighter moves on. Wood never considered leaving Davison or his team because they could collectively identify what went wrong and how it could be fixed. Wood showed he has the capacity to outbox Lara for long periods, he just needs to do it on his terms and not the Mexican’s.
“If you lose a fight, you don’t know why you lost and you don’t know what you did wrong, then you need to look around at your team and ask what happened,” Wood said. “If they haven’t got the answers for you, then you probably do need to make a move. With me, it was different. I was doing what I needed to do, I knew what mistake I made straight away, and that’s why the rematch is on such a fast turnaround, because I know what I did wrong and I know what I need to do to put it right.”
