David Adeleye anticipates a rematch with Fabio Wardley.
The 28 year old on Saturday, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, fights Croatia’s Filip Hrgovic in what represents both the biggest and most dangerous contest of his career.
His previous fight there came against the heavy-handed Wardley, who stopped him in seven rounds and whose career has continued to flourish.
Defeat that night contributed to Adeleye recruiting Adam Booth to be his new trainer and attempting to rebuild via victories over Solomon Dacres and Jeamie Tshikeva that delivered first the English and then the British heavyweight titles.
Wardley in June recorded his biggest victory when stopping Australia’s Justis Huni, but Adeleye is sufficiently confident in his progress under Booth and therefore his prospects against the 33-year-old Hrgovic and thereafter that he anticipates the opportunity of avenging his only defeat.
“It’ll come round,” he told BoxingScene. “The way our careers are going it’s gonna come round sooner or later – it’ll come round anyways.
“That night was an anomaly. I’ll say it time and time again – if me and Fabio Wardley was to fight 10 times, I’d win nine. The one time he would win is the time we fought. It’s the lack of the training and what not, and being a bit too complacent, but I’m not one to dwell on all of that sort of stuff. Life moves on. Once I deal with Hrgovic and move forward and that rematch does come about with me and Wardley, you’ll see the levels between us.”
Asked how often that meant him thinking about that night, he then responded: “Not a lot if I’m honest. I’m so focused on my own path and my own lane that that fight will come around when it needs to. If you’re in your own lane in your car, and you trust your car, you don’t need to worry about what the car’s doing next to you, right? Me and my car’s comfortable doing 100mph down this road, so, yeah, I’m comfortable in my car.”
Hrgovic-Adeleye features on the undercard of Moses Itauma-Dillian Whyte. That the 20-year-old Itauma is top of the bill of the night of Adeleye’s biggest fight – both, like Hrgovic, are also promoted by Frank Warren’s Queensberry Promotions – is a reflection of Itauma’s standing surpassing Adeleye’s, but he said: “I just focus on myself, to be fair. You look at a lot of fighters that do go past you, but sometimes it doesn’t always end so well.
“It comes down to what I said – there can be a car right next to you going faster than you that might get to their destination. But my destination is my destination. The time I get there is the time I need to get there.
“Once I’ve beaten Hrgovic, I’m right up there.
“[Hrgovic is] just a normal fella. No tension; no animosity; we nod at each other; we say ‘Hello’. That’s about it.”
