Former world champion Josh Warrington has informed World Boxing News of his pursuit to land another big fight following a recent setback.

Warrington, a two-time IBF featherweight champion, lost his belt to Luis Alberto Lopez in December. Fighting on home soil, Warrington faced criticism of his style once again as he went down to a majority decision.

“The Leeds Warrior” will aim to pick himself back up quickly. He hoped to land rematches with one of the two men to defeat him.

Lopez became the second after Mauricio Lara halted Warrington in 2021.

Asked to reveal the next step in his career, Warrington named a few of his targets, including WBC champion Rey Vargas.

“We are four months into the year, and let’s say four and a half months since the Lopez loss,” Warrington explained to WBN exclusively.

“We have been in negotiations for the last five weeks or so. We’ve been trying to sort out a [third] fight with Mauricio Aara. They’ve failed to get that sorted.

“It looks like they’ve agreed to fight Leigh Wood [on May 27 in Manchester], so they’ll fight again.

Josh Warrington targets Rey Vargas

“That means we kind of had to go back to the negotiation stages at this moment in time. I’m just waiting on my promotion and managing the team, you know, Eddie and Frank Smith and my manager, Steve Wood. I hope that they can deliver something for me. It’s hard, though, because a lot of the other fighters are now matched up.

“You have Lopez fighting Michael Conlan. You have Lee Wood fighting Mauricio Lara. Isaac Dogboe just boxed recently [losing to Robeisy Ramirez] with the WBO [title on the line].

“The only man who’s free at this moment in time is Rey Vargas [WBC featherweight titleholder]. He’s the only champion who was free this moment in time. But mostly, he stepped up to super featherweight to try and win the belt of the heavier weight.

“It was unsuccessful, but he still holds the [WBC] title at featherweight. So he’s coming off a loss. But I’m coming off a loss. That’d be a fantastic fight.

“I know he’s another Mexican, on top of Lopez. But I think Lopez publicly stated that he would not give me a chance for a rematch. I think he went as far as saying that he would never entertain me whatsoever, which it’d be interesting to see if I went down the road of becoming his mandatory challenger because then he would’ve to fight me.

“But that’s if he’s successful against Michael Conlan.”

Lopez rematch

Asked about facing Lopez again, Warrington responded: “I would absolutely love the rematch. Against Luis Alberto Lopez the last time, I thought I did enough on the night, even though I’d started slow.

“I know we went exceptionally close, but I thought I’d done enough. I feel that if we were to have a rematch, it’d be even more convincing [in my favor].”

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