Fabio Wardley reflected in his mind. On Saturday night, Daniel Dubois takes the WBO heavyweight title inside London’s O2 Arena, having lost 163 days to the same man, with an unbeaten professional record.
“Pere, it’s a great feeling,” Wardley explained in a press conference. It’s not the answer you’d expect from a fighter working at the top of boxing’s toughest division. But Wardley (20-1-1, 19 KOs) was referring to a return to the dog’s role – a position he embraced through an uneventful journey from white-collar boxing to the paid ranks.
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“I really like it. It feels more natural, more weightless,” Wardley said. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s fantastic to be world champion and hold the belt. But now I feel free. The talk around the fight has changed. I’m back as expected to loseand what happens to me worse.
He is not mistaken.
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After Wardley’s defeat of Dubois (23-3, 22 KOs) in May, an untimely, unpopular and exciting Fight of the Year contender, you’d find more than a few people within the Manchester Co-op Lives trying to predict his return before the end of the year.
Fabio Wardley says everything will be different this season.
(James Fearn via Getty Images)
Reconciliation with the same one who had left Wardley’s bloodied and disfigured face? That seemed even more true. And that before the suggestion he found himself in a position to turn it into effect.
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11 Orbs sometimes caused inconveniences. In the aftermath I wrote that there was a fighta sobering memory of the boxing power complex“.
Here, however, as the days went by those two giants ran away, and much of that trouble disappeared. The expectation was returned. The story is a possible redemption and another serious war.
It is one of boxing’s great contradictions: the same cruelty that makes us question the sport is often what makes us desperate to see it happen again.
But this season, as the 31-year-old from Ipswich is known too, is worth it, as long as +300 engineers are raised in victory.
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The only other time in Wardley’s 22-fight professional career he entered a fight as a senior against Joseph Parker last October. The result? The best victory of his career, when he became the heavyweight champion of the world for the first time.
Just 173 days later, he lost the crown to “Dynamite” Dubois.
Now, faced with the odds once again, Wardley must find a way to repeat the trick on the very man who took his name – and left him with the scars to prove it.
“I’ve been perjuring people for I don’t know how many years now,” Wardley said. “It seems to me that it is better when I say that I will send and lose myself, because this is too fair for me.”
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“I am a challenger and a hunter and honestly for me everything feels like, “This is, this is nice that I have enjoyed many years in the past in the rise and on my way.” It feels great.”
Saying that they thrive in the underdog or B-side parties is sometimes used by those fighters who are trying to convince the world of their chance in the fight. It is natural to take a reflexive position. Hundreds of fighters have told me that they are happy to ignore it in a fight to catch their opponent cold, but I suspect few really mean it.
But Wardley does. And he himself articulates why? very seriously
“He’s a relaxed guy, comfortable and confident, and I always think it’s good to improve my chances,” Wardley said. “I always feel like I’m going to miss – always. I always carry that mentality.
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“The way I came, this is the way it should be. The back of the wall is ready to bite and attack.”
It’s a low-key approach from a man who is the yin to the yang of Dubois’ cold, unapproachable nature—the battle of the week. Wardley’s fight of the week is like any other fighter I’ve come across. Open, relaxed, willing to talk, talk and talk.
There is no separation between the combatant and the media. Wardley — as far as can be said — feels like one us. He shares his jokes. The thought of himself. He can laugh at himself – a rare trait in the machismo-filled world of professional boxing.
And it’s this self-awareness that could help Wardley make the necessary adjustments this weekend. He reluctantly spoke of “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” when it came to the team. Faith remains. There is no need to change Wolf, just a few tweaks to the game plan.
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“Nothing goes without my faith,” Wardley said of his team. “My mantra is to keep it as simple as possible. My team hasn’t changed in five or six years. They’re all invested, they’ve lived through all the moments; the good and the bad. There’s no other level of emotion there. That’s why I trust them so much.”
Wardley also thought it was a “victory” about his victory, both over the course and during those 11 wild rounds in May. Conquering flattery suggests ennobling. When success becomes the norm, it’s easy to believe that what worked before will always work again.
What he did against Dubois in microcosm. Wardley dropped the Londoner twice in the opening three laps and appeared to have the upper hand. But he won the first battles only to lose the war, perhaps encouraging the first to believe that he was forced.
This time, the challenge is not simply to repeat what is revealed in these circles. Appreciate what went wrong when the reaction was sparked — and resist the temptation to make the same mistakes twice.
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Wardley was quoted as being confident of saving. “I did a track-tested record,” he explains, referring to a two-fight deal with Frazer Clarke. The second meeting ended within one round, seven months after a contested split-decision.
“Perhaps the damage is worse in imagination than in reality,” he said. “Maybe it’s good to get this off my back. I’m not in boxing thinking it’s never going to happen and going undefeated.”
They say a lucky fighter is a dangerous fighter, but what about a fighter who has lifted weights? Wardley may enter the ring on Saturday weighing as much as 250 pounds, but he has never felt lighter in his eyes.