Inside a packed O2 Arena, Daniel Dubois bludgeoned Fabio Wardley into a two-round stoppage loss to retain his WBO heavyweight title. It was fat, one-sided, and crowned Dubois as one of the most menacing operators in the sport.
What happened?
As many predicted, the fight marked a continuation of the first fight, which finished with Dubois firmly in the ascendancy. Dubois stormed forward from the first bell and the first time Wardley stopped to trade bombs, inside 17 seconds, he was caught by the right hand that he never fully recovered from.
Wardley’s trainer, Ben Davison, threatened to throw in the towel during a tumultuous first round, and when it became clear that things were going to get no better for Wardley in the second, Davison smartly intervened.
Why did it happen?
You can say the rematch came too early for Wardley and you wouldn’t be wrong. You can say the way he set up to start the fight was wrong and you’d have a point. But I think the big difference going into the fight was that Dubois had come through the fire last time and taken confidence from it. He also knew he could get to Wardley and start breaking him up, based on what happened last time. He also didn’t start this fight with the same post-Oleksandr Usyk trepidation that he had for the first fight. If their confidence levels were even last time, this time Wardley’s had likely dipped and Dubois’ had risen. And it showed.
Should the fight have taken place?
