JOSH WARRINGTON prefers a good slap and no tickle between the ropes.
The happily married father-of-two suffered a sickening KO loss to Maurico Lara in 2021 and a disfiguring broken jaw in his featherweight world title win over Kiko Martinez in March.
ReutersWarrington has ‘a weird fetish for getting punched in the head’[/caption]
But he hated his recovery time on the sidelines and is back risking his health and IBF crown against dangerous Luis Alberto Lopez on Saturday night.
And the kinky 32-year-old admits he gets his kicks out of getting punched – by everyone bar wife Natasha.
The Leeds legend said: “It took a long time to get the jaw back to full strength and let me eat a steak without worrying about it. But it’s all good now.
“I had to swallow the first few punches back. I didn’t want it on my mind throughout camp because that leads to you making mistakes in the ring on other things and getting caught anyway. I put it to the back of my mind.
“And I think I might even have a weird fetish for getting punched in the head.
“Don’t get me wrong, I don’t get Mrs Warrington to whack me or anything like that!
“But even when I watch other people spar and take a pasting, I can’t help thinking ‘let me get in there’”.
Warrington took a rare night out of camp to watch 44-year-old idol Ricky Hatton’s exhibition bout last month.
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And he used his down time away from the gym to add the piano to the guitar he already has mastered.
The extracurricular activities are helping the 33-fight veteran plan for his retirement once wife Tasha succeeds in convincing him to hang up his gloves.
“If I can earn a few quid by chinning some YouTubers at 44, I’d be up for a bit of that,” he said about the Internet boxing craze the Hitman tapped into.
“But I would like to think I still keep myself in good shape at that age.
“My dad always tells me I’ll end up his size, I have to tell Johnny Kebabs I won’t be getting to his 20st division any time.
“I might end up busking in Leeds for a small change or in restaurants.
“My missus just bought me a keyboard for my birthday so maybe I’ll be playing piano in bars and restaurants and people can go: ‘Oh look, that’s Josh Warrington over there, he used to be a boxer we used to go and watch… K***HEAD!’”
Thankfully for the thousands of Yorkshire men and women that will watch their boy at his local arena – and hopefully follow him to Las Vegas for an overdue jolly in 2023 – he’s an iron man now.
Following the violent stoppage of Martinez he needed surgery on his shattered face but hopes it now makes his whiskers even stronger.
He said: “I don’t want to be getting caught clean, at 32 it can chip away at you so hopefully no more.
“I have a metal plate in there now, so who knows, it might even be stronger than before.
“I might be a bit of a cyborg man now.”