Cordina charged with assault and weapon threat
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- Joe Cordina, 34, a former super-featherweight world champion from Pontprennau, Cardiff, has been charged with assault and threatening a person with an offensive weapon in a public place following an incident outside a petrol station in the Cardiff suburb of Pentwyn last February, South Wales Police confirmed.
- Cordina is due to appear at Cardiff Magistrates' Court on July 7, with a second man, Jamie O'Brien, 32, of Pentwyn, also charged with assault and scheduled to appear at the same court on July 28.
- Cordina's WBO lightweight title fight against American Abdullah Mason, slated for Cleveland on July 4, is off after the US embassy in London turned down his visa application — he said on social media that officials told him "you ain't getting in" despite presenting paperwork to support his case.
- The cancelled bout was set to be Mason's first defense of the belt he won in an "epic encounter" with Sam Noakes in November 2025, while Cordina was bidding to become a two-weight world champion.
- Cordina lost his IBF 130lb world title to Anthony Cacace in May 2024 — the only defeat in his 19-fight professional career — but has since claimed the vacant WBO global lightweight title and earned a unanimous points win over Gabriel Flores Jr in California in December 2025.
Why it matters: A 34-year-old one-loss ex-world champion now faces a criminal trial and the loss of a career-defining title shot in the same month — the visa denial alone already cost him a July 4 pay-per-view opportunity to claim a second world title in a different weight class, and the assault charge raises the prospect of further disruption to his boxing comeback.
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