Fabio Wardley is NEW WBO Heavyweight Champion!!

[gregregegg]

Assuming aj vs fury is September (huge ridiculous assumption but it’s the goal.) … would either of them try fight wardly befor hand…?

[joshj909]

Assuming aj vs fury is September (huge ridiculous assumption but it’s the goal.) … would either of them try fight wardly befor hand…?

If it was the two of them of five years ago, it would make sense to pick up a belt on the way to the fight, however, Wardley might be favourite over both if them now and would crush the interest in AJ/Fury if he won.

[RuudOEN84]

First Fabio is getting beat pillar to post against Huni.
Then a refferee gifts him an early TKO against Parker in a fight in which he was behind on the scorecards
Now he just get's a WBO world title, not even having to fight for it.

Terrible. Most unjustified World champion ever...

[Ruthless-RKO]

He posted this after he beat Parker.

[tigermoth87]

ridiculous

Boxing is an absolute joke nowadays -- constant robberies and gift decisions, piss poor stoppages, fake fights between Youtubers which mouthbreathers think are real and now titles handed to chumps on a plate.

Sport has gone to the dogs in the past decade.

[gilgamesh]

It wasn't really doing too hot 10 years ago either. 20 years ago though, now that was a fine year of Boxing.

[Taansend]

First Fabio is getting beat pillar to post against Huni.
Then a refferee gifts him an early TKO against Parker in a fight in which he was behind on the scorecards
Now he just get's a WBO world title, not even having to fight for it.

Terrible. Most unjustified World champion ever...

He was getting outboxed & he won by knockout.

That's boxing. He wasn't 'getting beaten pillar to post', just outboxed. And he won. By KO.

It's boxing. You're going to have to get over your bitterness towards Fabio because he beat your boy.

He won.

[rd350lc]

Pleased for the Fella.
From where he's come from with no amateur experience it's an amazing achievement.

[gilgamesh]

First Fabio is getting beat pillar to post against Huni.
Then a refferee gifts him an early TKO against Parker in a fight in which he was behind on the scorecards
Now he just get's a WBO world title, not even having to fight for it.

Terrible. Most unjustified World champion ever...

I'd say he earned more than Dubois did, but just barely.

There's definitely guys that have won vacant World titles over lesser men than Joseph Parker.

That being said i never think much of a Championship that's won or lost with the stroke of a pen instead of with punches. Wardley is my current favorite Heavyweight though so I hope he gets the chance to legitimize his reign.

I can't fault him for things going well for him when he's fighting and winning. He's doing his part, and had nothing to do with WBO's decision to strip Usyk. He'll take the belt though of course. Why wouldn't he?

[Bigdogsnose]

With everything going on in boxing atm I am surprised this gets any outrage. It’s a fairly std call, he has worked his way to mandatory and the champion has vacated! The lads done class and deserves it.

Usyk clearly didn’t fancy it!

That’s slightly tongue in cheek as we all know he’d be huge favourite but he doesn’t want the fight, for whatever reason. Probably sees it as a lose/lose and will go for a bigger money fight, which is fair dos.

For us it’s a win/win. Could set up fantastic fights v either Dubois or Itauma.

Is wardley a great champ, probably not. But till someone beats him, fair play to lad

[Ruthless-RKO]

[Nightmare Roy]

Feel sorry for Wardley, wonder if he would have still vacated if Joesniff had won?

[SeanBrennan]

Joseph P wouldn’t have turned his nose up at this..

[Taansend]

With everything going on in boxing atm I am surprised this gets any outrage. It’s a fairly std call, he has worked his way to mandatory and the champion has vacated! The lads done class and deserves it.

Usyk clearly didn’t fancy it!

That’s slightly tongue in cheek as we all know he’d be huge favourite but he doesn’t want the fight, for whatever reason. Probably sees it as a lose/lose and will go for a bigger money fight, which is fair dos.

For us it’s a win/win. Could set up fantastic fights v either Dubois or Itauma.

Is wardley a great champ, probably not. But till someone beats him, fair play to lad

Great post, Mate.

And Wardley v Dubois would be great.

They've come from completely opposite directions.

Dubois pushed into the sport by a domineering dad from a very young age. Does he even have control over his life?

Wardley liked football but that didn't work out so turned to boxing in his late teens or aged 20. Has one of the biggest hearts in the sport. No quit (so far).

I think Dubois would jab/beat the crap out of Wardley for the first few rounds. But would Fabio catch up to him?

[Coco]

I think DDD will be ahead on points, but Wardley stays with him, starts to have success, DDD will take the full count on one knee then walk back to his corner and sack his trainer

[JamesPhilips]

I think DDD will be ahead on points, but Wardley stays with him, starts to have success, DDD will take the full count on one knee then walk back to his corner and sack his trainer

I laughed but very likely

[Bigdogsnose]

With everything going on in boxing atm I am surprised this gets any outrage. It’s a fairly std call, he has worked his way to mandatory and the champion has vacated! The lads done class and deserves it.

Usyk clearly didn’t fancy it!

That’s slightly tongue in cheek as we all know he’d be huge favourite but he doesn’t want the fight, for whatever reason. Probably sees it as a lose/lose and will go for a bigger money fight, which is fair dos.

For us it’s a win/win. Could set up fantastic fights v either Dubois or Itauma.

Is wardley a great champ, probably not. But till someone beats him, fair play to lad

Great post, Mate.

And Wardley v Dubois would be great.

They've come from completely opposite directions.

Dubois pushed into the sport by a domineering dad from a very young age. Does he even have control over his life?

Wardley liked football but that didn't work out so turned to boxing in his late teens or aged 20. Has one of the biggest hearts in the sport. No quit (so far).

I think Dubois would jab/beat the crap out of Wardley for the first few rounds. But would Fabio catch up to him?

Cheers. I think momentum is all with wardley and ddd is fragile mentally anyway. That alone would be enough to bridge the ability gap and make it a cracker.

I wouldnt have bet on ddd to beat parker.

[Ruthless-RKO]

What does the future hold for life-changing government scheme which led Fabio Wardley to the top?

It is now nearly 17 years since Fabio Wardley’s journey to the world heavyweight crown started amid inauspicious circumstances on a football pitch in Suffolk.

It was there he first met Robert Hodgins, the man who would eventually lead him to his current position as the 11th world heavyweight champion in British boxing history following the news that Oleksandr Usyk had vacated his WBO belt.

But this was not exactly love at first sight as the 13-year-old Wardley took exception to his future coach’s decision to sub him off of a game he had been enjoying.

“He was my height back then when he was 13,” Hodgins tells The Ring. “The first time I met him I was filling in on a football session and I subbed him off.

“He didn’t like that decision too much. I said to him ‘do you think you could take me, Fabio?’ He’s 13 years old and skinny as a rake but he replied ‘I don’t think I can, I know’.”

It was not the first bit of backchat that Hodgins had experienced in his position as a coach, primarily boxing, as part of the Suffolk Positive Futures programme. To this day, the scheme’s mission statement is to make the county 'a safer place by diverting young people from anti-social behaviour and gang-related activity and providing opportunities that they may not otherwise have access to, to help better their life chances.’

As far as Hodgins could see, Wardley was not a bad kid, but he engaged with the opportunity to play sport instead of getting involved in less agreeable pursuits on the streets.

“He was strong-minded and did what he wanted,” Hodgins says. “I don’t think the system gave him an outlet, he had to be doing something. With Positive Futures he did a couple of boxing sessions but really he excelled at football and he was a very good player.

“The project was for kids who were misbehaving but he jumped on them as well. He wasn’t the typical kid getting kicked out of school or anything like that but he was still a handful and wanted somewhere to channel it. He needed to do something instead of sitting around, he’s a very clever man.”

But this was not exactly a Mike Tyson and Cus D’Amato type situation. Wardley cared little for boxing in his early teens despite trying his hand at it a couple of times. It was not until he was in his 20s that he sought Hodgins for more regular work.

“He disappeared for a while,” Hodgins says. “Like a lot of them do.

“But then he walked back into my gym when he was 20 years old after he got injured playing football. We used to get 100 kids at the football sessions but then only five or six at the boxing, Fabio had been one of the football kids but when he came back he had his heart set on boxing.

“It had been a few years and when he came back in he’s 6-foot-5, strong and athletic and it was like he’d never left. You could tell straight away how much he wanted it and he wanted to do everything straight away.”

That included sparring, although he found out pretty quickly that boxing is not quite as easy as he thought it looked.

“I remember he had these big pink 16-ounce Winning gloves and he wanted to spar on the first session. He was like ‘Rob, put me in, put me in’, so I let him spar. I would like to say it was brilliant and he had the best spar in the world but it wasn’t the case.

“He sparred a top amateur and I think he took quite a lot of body punishment but he loved it, he got out of the ring with a smile on his face and that made him train even harder after that. He caught that bug.”

His meteoric rise from those early days, through four explosive white-collar wins, to the top of the heavyweight rankings has been well-documented but it was nothing like an easy road. He is often described as something of an overnight success but it is now a decade since Wardley, resplendent in pink gloves, walked through the door at Hodgins’ gym.

Given his background as an amateur coach, the door was open for the heavyweight to get carded and head down that well-trodden route until a professional manager made contact. “I remember I sat him down and said that’s what we should do,” Hodgins remembers.

“I said I thought he should go amateur because I was an amateur coach and I thought he would be very successful, we had that belief in him. But he said ‘no, I’ve got this opportunity and it may never come again. I’m going to do it and I’d like us to do it as a team’.”

But that was really where the problems started. “No one would spar us,” Hodgins says. “I reached out to all my contacts about him but nobody would have us in their gym apart from Sam Sexton.

“We just couldn’t progress because people thought Fab was a novelty act. I was an amateur coach who had trained national finalists and people were asking me what I was doing with this kid from white collar. The funny thing is, most of them now tell me they always knew he’d do well.”

But there was still the small matter of getting a professional licence. These were still the early days of white-collar boxing and men with zero amateur experience were not exactly welcomed with open arms by the British Boxing Board of Control. In a bid to sweeten the deal, it was declared that Wardley had won 24 white collar fights by knockout, instead of the reality of his four quick wins.

In the end, it was actually the former England cricketer Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff who helped Wardley’s attempt over the line. Only a few years earlier, Flintoff had a professional fight under the guidance of Barry and Shane McGuigan with zero prior boxing experience for a television programme. He won his solitary bout in November 2012 on points.

“We could say, if you’re willing to licence Flintoff, we’ve got this kid here who has had 24 knockouts already,” Hodgins says. “They made us have an assessment at the Peacock Gym in London but they quickly saw he was up to scratch.”

It was not plain sailing from there however, and the early stages of his career were wrecked by a series of cancellations. On a couple of occasions, a coach load of friends and family made the trip from Ipswich to York Hall, Bethnal Green only to be told Wardley’s opponent had pulled out hours before the first bell.

“I actually remember pulling Fab to the side and saying that we tried our best but this is not our time,” Hodgins recalls. “I thought it might be time to knock it on the head.

“But Fabio said, ‘let’s try one more time, just one more shot’, and I suppose the rest is history.”

Undefeated Wardley is now 21 fights in, with the only blot on his copybook the pulsating draw with Frazer Clarke on Easter Sunday last year. He then brutally knocked Clarke out in just 158 seconds of their rematch six months later.

At the time of writing, Wardley is The Ring’s No. 2-ranked heavyweight but he will be No.1 in time for Christmas when the retired Tyson Fury drops out due to inactivity in December.

Put simply, Wardley has fought his way to the very pinnacle of the sport after having just 25 fights in his entire life, four white collar and now 21 as a pro. It would never have been possible without the Suffolk Future Positive Futures programme but, given youth services funding has been slashed by close to 75 per cent since Wardley first met Hodgins, the need for these schemes of this nature could not be more stark.

It is estimated that government austerity measures since 2010 have led to the closure of 600 youth centres, and a loss of jobs for 1,500 qualified youth workers. The social consequences of these cuts are hard to measure but any would-be Wardley's will have a higher barrier for entry.

“I’m not involved in Positive Futures as much any more,” says Hodgins. “Fab was lucky to have the opportunity to come in and try those free classes back them, without them, who knows where we all might be.

“Fabio is a clear example of what these youth schemes can do for people's lives and we need them. Could we find another Fabio without that funding? No I don’t think so. It just widens the horizon for a kid that may not want to take up boxing, or try sport, to come in and find out there is a natural talent for it.

“It’s upsetting that schemes don’t get funding like that nowadays because if it wasn’t for Positive Futures and their funding, we may never have found Fab.”

[joshj909]

With everything going on in boxing atm I am surprised this gets any outrage. It’s a fairly std call, he has worked his way to mandatory and the champion has vacated! The lads done class and deserves it.

Usyk clearly didn’t fancy it!

That’s slightly tongue in cheek as we all know he’d be huge favourite but he doesn’t want the fight, for whatever reason. Probably sees it as a lose/lose and will go for a bigger money fight, which is fair dos.

For us it’s a win/win. Could set up fantastic fights v either Dubois or Itauma.

Is wardley a great champ, probably not. But till someone beats him, fair play to lad

Great post, Mate.

And Wardley v Dubois would be great.

They've come from completely opposite directions.

Dubois pushed into the sport by a domineering dad from a very young age. Does he even have control over his life?

Wardley liked football but that didn't work out so turned to boxing in his late teens or aged 20. Has one of the biggest hearts in the sport. No quit (so far).

I think Dubois would jab/beat the crap out of Wardley for the first few rounds. But would Fabio catch up to him?

Cheers. I think momentum is all with wardley and ddd is fragile mentally anyway. That alone would be enough to bridge the ability gap and make it a cracker.

I wouldnt have bet on ddd to beat parker.

Parker Vs Dubois probably makes more sense at the moment

[Ruthless-RKO]

Oleksandr Usyk finally explains why he gave up world title

Oleksandr Usyk gave up his WBO heavyweight world title rather than defend it against Fabio Wardley who was recently promoted to full champion

Oleksandr Usyk claims he gave up one of his world titles to allow the younger generation to fight for it.

Usyk held all four heavyweight belts but relinquished his WBO strap when he was ordered to defend it against Fabio Wardley. Wardley was subsequently upgraded to full champion status and will make his first defence in 2026.

And Usyk claims he wants to see the Brit take on stablemate Moses Itauma. The Ukrainian's camp manager Sergey Lapin said: “Oleksandr vacated the belt to give young boxers a chance to fight for it. Let’s see how everything develops from here. Fabio Wardley vs. Moses Itauma would be a wonderful fight for both, and it would be very interesting to see who comes out on top."

Wardley wrested the interim title from Joseph Parker via a dramatic 11th-round stoppage last month and was mandated to face the Ukrainian. But the WBO confirmed Wardley as their new champion last week after earlier acknowledging that Usyk, who unified the world titles by beating another Briton, IBF champion Daniel Dubois in July, had formally relayed his decision to vacate the belt.

Wardley’s promoter allegedly wrote on X: “Britain has a new heavyweight world champion and a new star of the sport. “One of the most incredible stories I’ve seen in my 45 years as a promoter and I could not be prouder of @FabioWardley. Some huge fights ahead for 2026 as he defends his WBO belt and creates a true legacy in the sport.”

Wardley started his career in white-collar boxing before turning professional in 2017 and racking up 17 straight wins. After fighting a split-decision draw against Frazer Clarke in March 2024, he beat the same opponent in one round seven months later and subsequently came from behind to stop Justis Huni and earn his shot at Parker.

Wardley becomes the sixth Briton to hold the WBO heavyweight title after Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua, Henry Akinwande, Herbie Hide and Michael Bentt.

[joshj909]

I don't really buy that as a legitimate excuse but if the WBO is fought for by proper prospects while Usyk deals with mandatories then Usyk's retirement fight is against whichever of the prospects is left holding the WBO belt then that's probably the best thing that could happen.

Usyk to face Kabayel then whoever the WBA and IBF mandatories are. Maybe another fight somewhere else then facing whichever future star holds the WBO belt before retirement, he would have legitimately cleaned out the top of two eras.

[jamesmcdonnell]

Great post, Mate.

And Wardley v Dubois would be great.

They've come from completely opposite directions.

Dubois pushed into the sport by a domineering dad from a very young age. Does he even have control over his life?

Wardley liked football but that didn't work out so turned to boxing in his late teens or aged 20. Has one of the biggest hearts in the sport. No quit (so far).

I think Dubois would jab/beat the crap out of Wardley for the first few rounds. But would Fabio catch up to him?

Cheers. I think momentum is all with wardley and ddd is fragile mentally anyway. That alone would be enough to bridge the ability gap and make it a cracker.

I wouldnt have bet on ddd to beat parker.

Parker Vs Dubois probably makes more sense at the moment

Decent fight that. Parker should win, he's a better all round fighter, and should be able to stay out of trouble in the early rounds when Dubois is most dangerous.

[Ruthless-RKO]

Always thirsty, Oleksandr Usyk says loss of heavyweight belt only ‘temporary’

Though the future of Oleksandr Usyk remains uncertain, the world heavyweight champion has promised he has no immediate plans to retire.

Usyk, 24-0 (15 KOs), has twice reigned as “undisputed” champion but both terms were short – predictably so when one considers the number of sanctioning bodies that are required to sing from the same hymn sheet to retain harmony.

In May 2024, Usyk added the WBC belt to the WBA, IBF and WBO belts that were already in his possession by defeating Tyson Fury to put an end to more than 25 years of alphabet confusion in the banner division. The contest was so eagerly fought a sequel was a natural yet its creation meant that the IBF’s order to defend that belt against Daniel Dubois, a man he’d defeated the previous year, had to be denied. Usyk relinquished the belt and duly defeated Fury in the return that December.

In July, he then bested Dubois for a second time to regain the IBF strap and once again stand tall as the champion of all four sanctioning bodies. The WBO, meanwhile, were lurking with a demand of their own. England’s Fabio Wardley had taken the interim title from Joseph Parker, winning the right to challenge Usyk in the process. With injuries still niggling the champion, he again opted to give up one of his titles - thus handing that WBO strap to Wardley and triggering suggestions that he was ducking the Englishman.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the 63rd WBC Annual Convention in Bangkok, Thailand, the 38-year-old Ukrainian spoke of his appreciation to one organisation that is yet to revoke what is rightfully his.

“The green belt is always my favorite,” he said. “I [should] have four belts,” Usyk said. “Some people are saying I’m not undisputed champion anymore. Well, that is only temporary.”

About his current surroundings Usyk added: “I like Thailand. I thirst Thailand.”

It would seem his thirst for ruling the heavyweight division remains, too.

[joshj909]

The new WBO rankings. Somewhere in here will be Wardley's next opponent.
Champion: Wardley
1) Itauma
2) Hrgovic
3) Zhang
4) Dubois
5) Anderson
6) Chisora
7) Hysa
8) Jalolov
9) Torrez
10) Joshua
11) Franklin
12) Riakporhe
13) Ajagba
14) Sirenko
15) Trujillo

Franklin arriving in the rankings as soon as Frank picks him as an opponent for Itauma also, Sirenko still ranked despite losing to Dacres who isn't ranked anywhere. The Warren Boxing Organization at it again.

[Ruthless-RKO]