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Nick Parkinson
After producing last-round knockouts in his past two fights, Leigh Wood insists the game plan is not for the same outcome in Saturday’s featherweight world title fight against Mauricio Lara.
Wood has transformed his career from losing at the domestic level to being WBA world champion by winning his past three fights in the later rounds.
Wood (26-2, 16 KOs), 34, from Nottingham, England, recovered from being floored in the first round to knock Michael Conlan out of the ring in a brutal last-gasp win almost a year ago. It was ESPN’s 2022 fight of the year, as well as KO of the year.
And Wood had produced even more drama when he stopped Xu Can with just 17 seconds remaining to win the title in a big upset in July 2021.
“Believe it or not I don’t come out saying, ‘Leave it for the 12th’, but a lot of people think I do,” Wood told ESPN. “I did say before the Reece Mould [in February 2021] fight that I was probably going to knock him out in Round 9, which I did.
“Before the Can Xu fight I said accumulation would get him in the end, I would keep chipping away and I’m a big puncher. Accumulation is what did it in the end.”
Against Conlan, Wood was trailing on the scorecards when he dropped his opponent in Round 11 and then stopped him in the last round. Wood was behind 102-105, 103-104 and 103-104.
“In the Michael Conlan fight, it was more about pushing the pace, making him work more than he likes to work because he wastes a lot of energy trying to slip and roll with every single shot, being inefficient, and I said I would get him in the championship rounds. I even said that if I hadn’t have knocked him out by round 12, I would knock him out in round 12 because I believed that rounds 10, 11 and 12 were my rounds to win the fight.
“When I set out I wanted to leave a legacy, a history, and to win fight of the year and be the victor was special. Credit to Michael as well.”
Wood has turned around his career since joining up with Ben Davison, the former trainer of WBC world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury and WBO super lightweight champion Josh Taylor, ahead of the Mould fight in February 2021. Wood believes tactical and technical improvements under Davison have produced the best results of his career.
“I already had a lot of attributes like a lot of power but I was never set to throw, I was always skipping around or in bad ring position,” Wood said. “Ben identified that and after I first started to work with Ben I thought he was just testing me, but he wasn’t and that’s how hard training has been every single week with him. That hard work is what gets you the wins.
“My tick-over now is probably harder than when I was training full blown before. The main reason is the game plans, my team breaking down the opponent, reducing what they are good at and amplify what I’m good at.”
Wood’s recent track record for producing exciting knockouts is matched by Lara (25-2-1, 18 KOs), 24, who similarly emerged from relative obscurity to elite level when he traveled from Mexico to the U.K. and stopped Josh Warrington — then ESPN’s No. 1-ranked featherweight — two years ago.
But Wood said: “I can’t stand off him with my chin in the air and giving him shots to counter. But at the same time I’m coming out to meet him in the center of the ring. I know he’s an explosive puncher but a lot of the time he’s reckless. On the whole he has a lot of flaws.”
Wood is making a second defense of his belt at the same Nottingham Arena where he once attended former super middleweight champion Carl Froch’s title fights as a fan.
“When I was that little kid bouncing on the railings shouting for Carl, I used to look around and think, ‘One day I’m going to fight here, I’m going to headline here,'” Wood said. “I was always determined, even when I got to 30 I had not won a prestigious title in boxing and that’s quite unheard of really. If you’ve not done anything by that age people say you should hang it up. But I was still confident in getting there, I just wanted the opportunities and when I got them I took them.”
Wood recalls the time in May 2012, early in his professional career, when he was supposed to fight on the undercard of Froch’s world super middleweight title win over Lucian Bute at Nottingham Arena. Wood, who went to the same school as the now-retired Froch, was in a swing fight on the card but missed out on fighting.
“I did about £40,000 worth of tickets, I was devastated not to get out,” Wood said. “I warmed up three times and they tried to get me on before Carl, but I didn’t get to fight because other fights on the undercard went longer than expected. I remember later that night I was going home and thought after all this dieting I’m going to go for a McDonald’s. When I got there, Carl was there with his family and said, ‘Come and have some food with us.’ It finished a night that started off not so great turning out all right.”
Wood will be hoping that this Saturday night the celebratory McDonald’s dinner will be on him.