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The Road Ahead for Leigh Wood
Two-time world champion Leigh Wood finds himself at another crossroads in his career.
His debut at super featherweight ended with a whimper; IBO world champion Anthony Cacace stopping Wood in his own backyard of Nottingham at the weekend, the towel thrown in the ninth round.
Whilst he has bounced back from losses before, it will take some doing for Wood to return to the highest levels this late into his life as a professional.
Rubber match with old foe could be make-or-break for Leigh Wood
Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing
As a fighter gets older, the ability to cut weight and compete in a division becomes much more difficult. Wood’s move to super featherweight made sense, even aside from setting up a lucrative encounter with Anthony Cacace.
Having made the step up a division, Wood is still finding out where he stands in comparison to other fighters at his new weight. With a year-and-a-half between his two last fights, it is harder to gauge exactly where Wood is, so a more active end to 2025 could pay dividends.
Whilst defeat in his first fight as a 130-pounder will have lowered his stock, Wood might feel that he is still able to breach the top ranks of the division with a few wins.
In fact, Wood could combine a stock-building fight with a lucrative payday. Former foe Mauricio Lara has also moved up to the super-featherweight division, having done so after failing to make weight in his second fight with Wood in 2023.
Lara’s failure to make 126 pounds prevented the Mexican from defending the WBA featherweight title he had taken off Wood; but it would make no meaningful difference.
Wood enacted revenge for his earlier defeat to Lara with a unanimous decision win. Lara has had three fights as a super featherweight but remains on the outside of any title discussion in the division.
By setting up a trilogy match, not only would either fighter have the chance to claim the bragging rights, but they could catapult themselves towards a title shot.
After Lara twice travelled to the UK to fight Wood, there might be decent money to be made for the Nottingham-born fighter if he travelled to boxing-mad Mexico for the rubber match.
City Ground farewell for Leigh Wood?
Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing
Aside from becoming a world champion, Wood has been clear about one of his ambitions for his boxing career since the very start of it. A huge supporter of Nottingham Forest, often bearing the club’s crest on his shorts whilst in the ring, Wood wants to fight at the home of his beloved football team.
Boxing cards at Premier League stadiums are in vogue, with Tottenham Hotspur, Ipswich Town, Crystal Palace, and AFC Bournemouth all staging events in recent years.
Wood has proven that he can mobilise the city of Nottingham to attend his events, having fought at the Motorpoint Arena on five occasions.
That works in his favour when it comes to bargaining a potential event at the City Ground, but even Wood has admitted that it looks unlikely at this stage of his career.
Ryan Garner is another British super featherweight that harbours ambitions of fighting at a football ground, the man nicknamed ‘The Piranha’ a massive Southampton fan.
At a very different stage of his career to Wood, a fight with Garner could represent a passing of the torch whilst attracting a big-enough crowd to the City Ground to justify staging a fight night.
Aside from adding a big name to his CV, Garner would boost his own chances of headlining a card at St. Mary’s, home of Southampton, by proving that he can sell tickets at a football ground.
Garner has already built up a supporter base filled with Southampton fans that travel well, and that would likely prove to be the case with an away day to Nottingham.
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