By Tom Coleman
“It’s been challenging but unfortunately it’s out of my hands. My faith is strong, though. “It’s God’s plan. It’s not my plan. So I’ve just to let it it run.” Joe Cordina’s choosing to take a philosophical outlook to what’s undeniably been a difficult 13 months or so. On Saturday, the 33-year-old is poised to make his long-awaited return to the ring by taking on Mexican Jaret Gonzales Quiroz on the undercard of Jack Catterall’s showdown with Harlem Eubank at Manchester’s AO Arena. It’s a fight he hopes will present the first step towards world title contention. Cordina lost his IBF Super World Featherweight title to Anthony Cacace in Riyadh last May. A rematch was touted, but never materialised, with Cordina instead moving up to lightweight, the division where he’d previously claimed British and Commonwealth titles. Nevertheless, the Cacace defeat clearly left a bruise, and when the opportunity to take on current WBC lightweight champion Shakur Stevenson back October also evaporated, it only deepened frustrations for the Welshman, who has his own theories around the American’s decision to withdraw from the fight. “I think there’s a lot more to it than just him getting injured,” he tells WaleOnline. “It was quite hard to take because those fights are the ones everyone wants to be involved in. “Win, lose or draw, it was my big night, and it got taken away from me. So, of course, I was gutted, but I just had to make peace with it. “I just think he could have easily made that fight. He wasn’t quite sure. Stylistically I’m a nightmare for anyone. I don’t care if you can punch. I don’t care if you can box. If you can box and you’re a technically great fighter like Shakur, he makes it boring. I can make it boring too. “If you can punch, I can make it very, very hard for you to land that big punch. I just think he wasn’t too sure. I think it could have been a style clash between me and him. “We can revisit it because we’re at the same weight now and he’s got a world title and that’s what I want. “He called me out when I had a world title at super featherweight and he had one, then he moved up. “So we can get it on for sure. But it’s whether he’s got the bottle. He seems to fight everyone else apart from the top guys. “I’m not a top guy in this weight now. I’ve not got a world title yet. But I soon will have. So he’ll have no choice but to fight me if he wants another one.” This isn’t the first comeback Cordina has faced down in his career, of course. Just four months after becoming IBF world super-featherweight champion, Cordina was stripped of the title after injury forced him to pull out of a mandatory defence with Shavkat Rakhimov that had initially been pencilled in for November 2022. He would eventually reclaim his belt in the ring the following April, but it was an episode that clearly took its toll, with Cordina admitting he even considered walking away from the sport when he learned he would need surgery. Given the scale of this most recent setback, one can’t help but wonder if a similar thought had crossed his mind in the last few months. “No,” is the emphatic reply. “The reason why I was like that back then was because when I injured my hand, it was the first-ever time. It was lockdown too, so that plus my hand injury meant I was out of the ring for 18 months. “Then to come back and have two fights, then get ready for my third fight and break my hand, snap it straight away, in a spar getting ready for the Rakhimov fight. I was thinking, ‘am I going to be the same?’ I’d had two bad breaks in my hands. “It was frustrating because I had another long time out the ring. Then I had to have another operation, which is not cheap. Then I had to see my title get stripped from me, with two other guys fighting for it. “So when I said all that, I think I was half-kicking up a fuss. I just thought ‘why am I getting stripped when I should be champion in recess?’ “They should have had an interim title and go from there, but it worked out in the end. I got the shot back straight away and back in Cardiff , and I just took that from him again.” A lot has unfolded since then, and Cordina appears to have matured since that episode. He is, by his own admission, much wiser to some of the perceived dark arts he feels continue to define his line of work. “I’ve seen all the different scenarios now in boxing,” he added. “I’ve seen how people act towards certain people, and I’ve seen pretty much everything in the game now. “I’ll be honest, that’s why I’m managing myself, because I know how the game works. I’ve seen all the dogs in the game and how they move, and I know when to stay away from them. I can do all this on my own. “When you’ve got a promoter like Eddie Hearn, you can liaise with him and do the job you’re otherwise paying a certain manager to do. “You can talk sensibly to him and you’re not getting fed third-hand information. Then you’re going to be in a much better place. I just believe I’m much more experienced in this game. Much wiser and I can do the same job as all these managers, especially for myself. I know what’s best for me. “There’s been dogs in boxing for many years,” he adds without naming names. “It’s one of the most corrupt sports, but at the same time you’ve got a lot of good people in boxing as well. “For instance, people think me and Eddie have had cross words. We’ve bumped heads, but everything he’s said he’s going to do he’s done, and he’s given me the opportunity to win world titles back in my home town.” Relations have clearly been patched up now, but there was undeniably a fair amount tension at one point between Cordina and Hearn’s promotor Matchroom Boxing. So much so, Cordina briefly became a free agent, with the former Olympian complaining about the lack of communication from Hearn and Co around possible future fights shortly after the Stevenson bout fell through. But after a brief phone call, the two parties reunited once again. “A couple of months back, I gave Eddie a bell, and he asked me to come to the press conference for Johnny Fisher v Dave Allen fight,” he added. “I went down and we had a chat. Straight away, I was promised fights left right and centre from October. “When I saw him, he was like ‘I don’t know why you haven’t come to see me sooner’. It was like I’d never left. He shook my hand and a couple of days later, everything started to get sent through. “I’m just glad to be back with Matchroom. I started with Matchroom and that’s the way I want to finish. I was comfortable with everyone in Matchroom. “It was a bit of an eye-opener when I had a chat with him and it’s water under the bridge now. It’s done. “Now I’m in the driving seat and in my car, and I know what turning to take on every road.” Cordina, a huge Cardiff City fan, has previously made no secret of the fact he would like to fight at Cardiff City Stadium one day, while the Arms Park and Cardiff Castle are among the other dream venues on his radar. But it’s the pursuit of titles rather than stadiums that’s continues to capture his imagination. Should he reach the top of the lightweight division Cordina would become the first two-weight world champion since Joe Calzaghe, which isn’t a bad incentive for the coming year or so. Saturday night is the first step to realising those unfulfilled dreams, although he admits he doesn’t know an awful lot about his opponent this weekend. “There’s not much to even watch of him. I can’t find one video of him or nothing,” he admits. “He’s got the same record as me with 17-1. He’s got 13 knockouts, a lot more knockouts than me. “But at the same time, if I want to be world champion again, I’ve got to beat him, and I’ve got to look good beating him. “I’ve trained hard, I’ve done everything that’s been asked of me. But now I’ve got to go out there on Saturday and get the job done.”