Lockett ready to steer Cordina back to title success

AFTER a period of uncertainty, Joe Cordina can now look forward to one of stability with a new promotional deal and trainer.

Cordina recently signed an agreement with Matchroom, extending their working relationship, and the Welshman recently told Boxing News he would be training back home with Gary Lockett. On July 5, the former IBF super-featherweight champion will end a 14-month absence from the ring when he faces Mexican Jaret Gonzalez Quiroz on the Jack Catterall-Harlem Eubank undercard at Manchesterโ€™s AO Arena.

The 32-year-old makes his long-awaited debut at lightweight, and Lockett explained to Boxing News how he feels Cordina will benefit from moving up from 130lbs to 135lbs.

โ€œI think it’ll just allow him to be strong,โ€ he said. โ€œHis last couple of fights, you can see with the performances, you can see when Joe’s performances are flat. You can see there’s something definitely wrong.โ€

Cordinaโ€™s last two fights ended with a hard-fought points win over game Texan Edward Vazquez before losing his world title to Anthony Cacace. The Belfast man ended Cordinaโ€™s second reign as champion with an eighth-round stoppage win. Since then, Cacace has backed that up with impressive wins over former world champions Josh Warrington and Leigh Wood.

Lockett has seen Cordina at his best and at his not-so-best. In June 2022, the former Olympian knocked out Kenichi Ogawa with a nuclear right hand in the second round to wow everyone inside the Cardiff International Arena. Ten months later, Cordina proved his mettle by withstanding the relentless Shavkatdzhon Rakhimov to win by split decision, earning him the IBF title for a second time. The performances against Vazquez and Cacace were not the Cordina of old, and Cacace capitalised.

โ€œSometimes you’ll see a guy and they look a million dollars,โ€ Lockett said. โ€œAnd you’re looking forward to seeing them again and watch them and you go, โ€˜Oh, this isn’t the guy I saw the last time. Maybe there’s something wrong.โ€™

โ€œMaybe they’ve had an illness. Maybe they’re weight-weakened. Maybe there’s so many things.

โ€œWhen Joe’s strong at the weight and when he’s at 100 percent, he always performs. But there have been those couple of flat performances. I asked him and he said, โ€˜I was just weight-weakened, just dead at the weight.โ€™ A lot of people say, โ€˜Oh, it’s just excuses.โ€™ But when you look at the manner of the performance against the Japanese fella (Ogawa), it only went two rounds and that was a fantastic ending. Then you look at him against Rakhimov, who was a serious fighter. He had to be strong for 12 rounds and he had to stand his ground and he had to fight for a certain portion of that fight. He had to be right. So you could see in that one, he was right and he performed very, very well.

“So I think it’s just going to allow him to be that little bit stronger and to be able to perform a little bit better. He’s been weight-weakened in certain fights in the past by dragging his body down to nine-stone four. So if he’s going up to nine-stone nine, then it’ll just give him that little bit of leeway. The same reason why everybody moves up.

“A lot of the time though, they leave it too long, so they wait until a loss to do it. And you just wonder if you had moved up a little bit before.โ€

Cordinaโ€™s move to Lockettโ€™s gym, ending his time with previous trainer Tony Sims, may have come as a surprise, but not to Lockett. He explained that when Cordina is back home in Wales, he always uses his facility to tick over.

โ€œWe’ve known each other for a number of years now,โ€ Lockett said. โ€œJoe decided that he wanted to come home, train from home. He said he doesn’t want to be away from the family anymore. Makes sense. So he approached me to train him. There was a couple of things to work out. There was a couple of I’s to dot and a couple of T’s to cross but we came to an agreement. So, we’re giving it a go and he’s working hard.โ€

In 2024, Cordina saw a fight against WBC lightweight champion Shakur Stevenson on October 12 fall through after the American suffered an injury in September. In interviews with Boxing News since then, Cordina has expressed frustration at the inactivity but said the desire to provide financial stability for his family is a great motivator.

Speaking in December last year, Cordina said: โ€œThe next thing is to secure my family’s future and I haven’t quite done that yet, so I must keep pushing and do that. I’ve got a wife and three kids, don’t want to finish boxing and need another job, want money behind me where I can go invest it right and make it work for me.โ€

Since he began training him, Lockett has seen a man hungry for more titles and not satisfied with what he has achieved in the sport, with no mention of financial gain.

โ€œWhen Joe turned pro, if someone had told him that he was going to win a world title twice, I think he would have taken that. Given the circumstances, there’s been a little bit of inactivity and there’s been certain circumstances where he might have had more defences.

โ€œHe’s definitely achieved a lot, but I think, in Joe’s mind, there’s still a lot more to achieve. So, that’s what he’s aiming to do. He’s aiming to come back stronger and better than ever. He just needs to get back in the ring. Fingers crossed everything goes well with this fight and then Joe can move on to bigger opportunities.โ€

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