As a battered and bruised y made his strategy to the again following s in Might – proper eye closed shut, nostril splattered, the white of his Ipswich City-themed trunks now pink – the now-former WBO world champion had one thought and one thought solely: “Get me again in.”
Wardley had simply been on the dropping finish of a firefight that he might have had within the bag inside 15 seconds. His first-round knockdown of Dubois was adopted up by one other two rounds later, because the 31-year-old consigned criticism of being a sluggish starter to the scrapheap as soon as and for all. Alas, it was throughout the third spherical the place one sharp Dubois overhand proper turned the tides. A torrent of ‘Dynamite’ punishment ensued, proving his coronary heart past doubt, and h.
It was a brutal strategy to be dealt a primary profession loss. However Wardley didn’t wish to wallow in his failure; not for a second. Requested at what level he requested h, which fits down at London’s O2 Area this Saturday, Wardley mentioned: “Instantly. I used to be sat within the altering room and I feel I used to be asking for Frank [Warren, his promoter]. I used to be like, ‘Somebody go get Frank and inform him we're doing this once more in November,’ instantly.
“What else am I gonna do? Simply go, ‘No,’ and run off in a distinct course or, ‘No, I feel I would like two or three fights to construct me again up. I would like my confidence again.’ F*** that. No. Get me again in. I'll kind it out myself. I'll proper the wrongs. I'll repair it, and we'll go once more.”
Wardley was again within the gymnasium inside two weeks. As unhealthy because the optics have been, he insists it was enterprise as regular inside hours of the struggle being waved off. He was again on dad responsibility by 4am on Sunday morning. “I do know it sounds actually bizarre to say, however I used to be nice,” he mentioned. “I had a swollen eye and a lower nostril, and I used to be a bit bit drained and no matter else. However total, I used to be nice. I nonetheless had a lump of a child on my shoulder bouncing round, and I stood there for half an hour getting her down and whichever else. I used to be nonetheless in a position to flip up in that capability.”
He’s anticipating one other little one in December, giving him a bit extra respiration room post-fight than he had for his first-born, who arrived per week after his win over Justis Huni in June 2025. He says neither have been deliberate: “They simply preserve popping up!”
Some fighters use their kids as a motivation. Others develop into extra conscious of their well being and the perils of combating in parenthood. Wardley gave the impression to be falling into the latter camp after the insane Huni struggle, saying he needed to keep away from being in so many wars that “preserve taking years off my life”. He’s about to re-enter the ring with a person with whom he shared the largest conflict of his profession. “I don’t hearken to myself,” he conceded.
To be each Wardley the fighter and Wardley the daddy, he has to separate the 2. “There’s a Jekyll and Hyde happening, they’re two totally different folks,” he defined. “I really like my little one dearly with each little bit of my coronary heart, however I assume within the nicest means, she is not any consideration to me by any means after I'm in the course of the ring, as a result of she will be able to't be. That may’t be a consider my mind, in any other case I'm not gonna obtain huge issues.”
Transferring on from the setback of 5 months in the past required Wardley to do one thing he’d by no means finished earlier than: watch again a struggle he’d misplaced. To start out, he was doing this alone at the hours of darkness, ready for his associate and child to fall asleep earlier than poring over the footage: “I knew my missus doesn’t actually take pleasure in it.” He has since realized the place he wanted to regulate, and whereas he clearly wasn’t going to share that data earlier than struggle evening, he believes his malleability will shine by means of of their rematch.
“I suppose we will all be very plain and sincere right here that the room for progress between the pair of us is exponentially in my favour,” Wardley proclaimed. “That's not to remove from Daniel in any respect. He's a very good fighter. He does issues very effectively, and he has finished for quite a lot of years.
“However the room for change and progress and adjustment in model [is something] which I've confirmed throughout totally different fights towards totally different fighters. I've not seemed the identical in all my fights. I've been in a position to modify and alter issues round. That's already ticked off and confirmed in my books. I simply want to use it once more to this struggle.”
Wardley has continued to repeat the identical summation of his first struggle within the build-up to the second: “I used to be a sufferer of my very own success.” He lacked the composure needed when Dubois was there for the taking. However as he heads into struggle week, Wardley is relaxed; that evening in Manchester confirmed to him that he has the basics of beating Dubois already down.
He can hit him laborious sufficient. “I’ve ticked that field, I can knock you down – and never simply the as soon as, the twice. It doesn’t show it’s a fluke; it’s a constant motion, it’s one thing I can do,” Wardley mentioned. However he may get hit. Requested about Dubois’s haymakers, he denied being significantly shocked: “I’m not gonna disrespect the person by saying he’s not an enormous puncher or that I didn’t really feel it. I did – I simply wasn’t… that bothered by it.”
Wardley is assured he’ll this time discover a strategy to get by means of Dubois within the cauldron of the O2 Area. Redemption has been on his thoughts from the second he was crushed. Nevertheless it’s not simply private revenge that has motivated his fast turnaround. There’s a altering of the guard at heavyweight; Wardley refuses to develop into a facet character of the brand new technology.
“We've seen how shortly the division might be turned on its head. [Oleksandr] s threw the division the wrong way up, and abruptly there was all these fights being made and all these items happening. If I'm simply sat on the wayside, I might be left, misplaced at midnight,” he mentioned.
In his quest to fill an Usyk-shaped gap on the very prime, diving straight again into this rematch comes with an enormous danger. Again-to-back defeats might ship Wardley plummeting out of the world title image. On the issue of constructing Wardley again up within the occasion of one other loss, Warren mentioned, “It relies upon how he loses,” earlier than the Queensberry chief – who additionally promotes Dubois – shortly hinted there’ll solely be one consequence: “It ain’t gonna go the space. Not these two.”
This won’t simply be a slugfest spectacle; there are career-altering stakes at play. Dubois succeeded when tasked with bouncing again from failure earlier than, doing so towards Wardley. Not surrounded by the mystique of being undefeated, Wardley now will get his flip to show he belongs.
