LeighWood

'Leigh-thal'

Former WBA Featherweight Champion

Leigh Wood is the former two-time WBA featherweight champion of the world.

The 36-year-old from Nottingham became WBA champion in July 2021 when he overwhelmed the feared Chinese force Can Xu during the Covid-19 restrictions and successfully defended the belt in an epic confrontation with Irish Olympian Michael Conlan at the Nottingham Arena.

Wood recovered from being put down at the end of the first round and a significant points deficit to return the compliment by flooring Conlan in the 11th and then, in the final round, knocked his opponent out of the ring with a vicious salvo of heavy punches.

Back in Nottingham nearly a year later, it was Wood who suffered a stoppage against the big-hitting Mexican Mauricio Lara before, three months on, Wood regained his title status by executing a masterclass of textbook boxing against Lara to win by a sizeable margin on the scorecards.

His most recent action came against Leeds rival and former IBF world champion Josh Warrington in Sheffield back in October 2023. Warrington was boxing well to a gameplan to frustrate Wood, but the champion responded in the seventh round with a brutal combination that sent Warrington spiralling to the canvas and he didn’t recover sufficiently for the referee to allow him to continue.

Wood, who lost out in a British title challenge against Gavin McDonnell at super bantamweight in 2014, won the Midlands Area belt featherweight in 2016 and became Commonwealth champion in 2019, making one defence, before winning the WBO European title.

A big turning point in his career came with his teaming up with trainer Ben Davison and subsequently becoming British featherweight champion with victory over the previously unbeaten Reece Mould.

On Saturday May 10 at the Nottingham Arena, Wood will challenge for the IBO world super featherweight title against the champion Anthony Cacace in his opening night performing under the Queensberry banner.