THE day before featherweights Leigh Wood and Mauricio Lara went to war in a Nottingham boxing ring, they both hit the scales at a pre-fight weigh-in, as is customary before a fight, and stared each other down for the benefit of the cameras, hoping to gain some sort of psychological edge both knew in their heart of hearts would mean very little once the first bell sounded.
Interestingly, it was during this moment, with the language barrier one of many obstacles between them, Wood could be heard saying to Lara, “You’ll have to kill me, you’ll have to kill me,” as he shook his head in steely defiance.
Hearing this, of course, the sense was that Wood was simply
