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Luis Alberto Lopez Dethrones Josh Warrington As World Champion

Written by Jared Parry on 11th December 2022.

Luis Alberto Lopez travelled into enemy territory to pick up the IBF world featherweight title, defeating Josh Warrington in Leeds.

Warrington wanted to lift the spirits following England’s loss in the World Cup which was shown in the arena, but would be unsuccessful as he would be defeated by Lopez by majority decision.

As always, Leeds came out in force to support their own, as Warrington entered the arena to a raucous ovation, as Leeds United’s Liam Cooper joined him on his ring walk.

Lopez set a relentless pace early on, attempting to lure the ‘Leeds Warrior’ into his style of fight. The Mexican would have success, as he drew blood from the nose of Warrington in the first round.

‘El Venado’ picked up a nasty cut over his left eye in round two, as the pair came close, resulting in an accidental head clash. However, Lopez did not let this faze him, as he continued his earlier success.

Warrington gained a foothold in the fight throughout the middle rounds, finally finding his range. A big left hook from the defending champion came in round six, but the challenger took it well and continued to taunt Warrington, smiling and chatting away at the ‘Leeds Warrior.’

Warrington sensed that he was falling behind, so upped the tempo in the late rounds to ensure the fight wouldn’t slip away, Lopez had answers for Warrington’s work, but the defending champion was relentless, however, ‘El Venado’ stood firm up to the final bell.

Warrington’s late effort wasn’t enough, despite one scorecard reading a 114-114 draw, the other two were both 115-113 in favour of the Mexican, crowning him the new IBF world featherweight champion.

Speaking after the fight, Warrington thanked his fans and spoke about future plans, whilst feeling a little hard done by:

“I’m absolutely devastated losing my title like that but I want to say a big thank you to all these for making noise, so thank you.

“I did have aspiration of doing other things. Obviously I wanted to go to the (United) States and I still want to do that. Maybe unifying is a step too far but I think I can still fight one of the other champions. Obviously I would have the rematch as well because I thought I was a little hard done by there.”

Lopez expressed his delight in becoming world champion, but referred to Warrington as a dirty fighter:

“I’m really happy at the moment. It has been a long period of preparation. As I said in the build-up, this is my moment, it comes from hard work. I’m delighted to be world champion.

“To be honest I had to respect him coming into his city, in front of his people. I knew he was a dirty fighter but he surprised me even more, he was hitting me to the legs, in the gut and the referee I didn’t feel did his work.”

Warrington was dealt the second loss of his career, as he was defeated in 2021 by Mauricio Lara. Lopez now enters the world scene where big fights await him.