Josh Warrington opens up about his bizarre fetish ahead of Luis Alberto Lopez's world title fight

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.

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.

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.”