Joe Cordina: Boxing’s ‘Welsh Wizard’ bidding to unify World Super-Featherweight Division

It has been a year of ups and downs for Welsh Boxing sensation Joe Cordina. After a thrilling second-round knockout victory over Kenichi Ogawa won a dream IBF World Super Featherweight Championship in April, a fracture to his right hand left the Cardiff-born fighter stripped of a title that meant so much to him.

It was a ‘bittersweet’ moment for the 31-year-old who challenges Tajikistan’s 28-year-old Southpaw, Shavkat Rakhimov on Saturday 22 April, in a hugely anticipated matchup between two unbeaten fighters. A bout that was meant to be the Welsh Wizard’s first defense back in November. 

With the roles of the opponents reversed this time, the Welsh native is now back fully fit and raring to go in front of his home crowd in Cardiff’s International Arena. A fight that Cordina believes will be his greatest challenge to date.

On top of the bill of Matchroom Boxing’s schedule, coverage will be shown live on streaming service DAZN, with an undercard containing Gavin Gwynne and Craig Woodruff’s clash for the BBBOC British Lightweight Championship and Zelfa Barrett’s matchup with Alex Dilmaghani amongst others.

Undeterred and determined to regain the title that he believes he never lost, Cordina will look to achieve what was and still is his number one goal, to be World Champion and unify the Super-Featherweight division.

“I’m a former World Champion, going into this fight I believe I should be champion. In my head, I am a World Champion because I have never lost in the ring,” said Cordina.

“I’m going to have the confidence as a champion, but I’m going in as challenger for my title, I’ll get that back and I want to move on to bigger things. 

“I’ve already become a World Champion but it’s not unified. He’s [Rakhimov] stopping me from unifying the titles so it’s definitely my biggest challenge as we’re both unbeaten.

“It’s not as if I gave the title up, or vacated it, I got stripped. For me it was a bit of a kick in the nuts. What can I do, it was one of those things. I got injured and through a deal that was made, it resulted in me losing my title. 

“It was a disappointment and a bittersweet year for me, but I’ve moved on and have made peace with it. I’m going to get my title back and I want to push on after to bigger and better things. 

“I had a goal to become a World Champion, I have done that, taken it off the list. My next goal is to become a unified World Champion. The first step is getting my title back.”

Whilst acknowledging the importance of the Cardiff crowd come April, Cordina is keen to not let the vocal support provide his opponent with any additional incentive or advantage.

Back on home soil for the first time since his title win, the fighter is fully focused and happy with how his preparations for the bout are going and is keen to repeat his triumph, just one year ago. A victory he sees as the best moment of his career to date.

“Everything is going perfectly. I started training an extra four weeks earlier than what I should have, just to get ahead of the game. Sometimes it’s good to start early”, continued Cordina.

“The one thing you don’t want to be doing is rushing and trying to play catch up on your training. I started early, took my time getting into the swing of things and the graft started. I’ve got seven weeks and I’m in a good place.

“For me winning the World title, that atmosphere, that feeling as I won that night, the way I won will never be topped. It doesn’t matter how many World titles I win.

“After that moment I don’t think that feeling will be topped. Winning the World title in Cardiff, the way I did it, that’s the icing on the cake.

“I don’t think it’s going to play a part [the Cardiff home support]. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to have the crowd there, but as soon as I walk out there, I go blank. 

“When I was out there it was as if I was deaf at the time, I could not hear anything. I could see everyone, and I was trying to soak it up, but I couldn’t hear anything until it put him over [Kenichi Ogawa], the count was finished, and the referee waved it off. 

“That’s all I could hear. Then I heard everyone, and it was quite a weird and surreal feeling. It can play a part with certain fighters, don’t get me wrong if it gets tough in there, I might need it to get a bit rowdy to boost me on.

“I’m not going to try and use the crowd, because sometimes it can play into your opponent’s hands, which I think it did with Liam Williams against Chris Eubank. The crowd was going a bit too mad and Liam bought into that too much. 

“Nevertheless, it’s always good to have a home crowd and it might play against Rakhimov. I’m not going to try and think about the crowd too much and let that get to me though.

“Once I get this title back there’s a lot out there for me. There’re unifications, the belts are all scattered there not all with the same person. I want to unify first and foremost, I can’t do that without winning this title back.

Joe Cordina was speaking at the new and upsized JD Sports store in Merthyr Tydfil at a fan meet & greet on 5^th March 2023.