Fabio Wardley-Daniel Dubois, on May 9, is a real heavyweight shootout.
It’s a fight between two very good punchers. Both are offensively-minded, have holes in their defence, and are flawed enough to mean that the power they have is the most intriguing aspect involved in matching them. The only way it could be a disappointing fight is if one of them gets caught and stopped early.
Wardley making his first defence of the WBO heavyweight title against someone like Dubois is a pretty big deal. Until Dubois lost to Oleksandr Usyk he was the most in-form heavyweight in the world.
That defeat should have made Dubois hungry. But him being knocked out means that it’s also possible that Wardley’s fighting him at a good time.
Even if it’s also the sort of opportunity that would have been difficult for Dubois to turn down, we won’t know until fight night whether it was a good idea or a stupid one for him to take it. I’m not even convinced that that should be something we’re debating – there was a time that, except for the occasions when an immediate rematch could be justified, fighters coming off a loss weren’t sanctioned as challengers for a title. But what that doesn’t change is how good this fight can become if it goes beyond the opening rounds – or that Dubois has previously proven people wrong.
Since the second of those defeats by Usyk, Dubois has separated from Don Charles, linked up with Tony Sims, separated from Sims, and starting training under Charles again. Fighters are capable of overthinking and also of being impulsive – the impact of doing that might also only become clear when he and Wardley are in the ring – but it might prove relevant that both Sims and Charles spoke about liking the Wardley fight for him.
That Wardley won’t be hard to find will have gone some way to making Sims and Charles confident – yet in his past fight Wardley stopped Joseph Parker to record his biggest win. I make Wardley the early favourite on account of Dubois rebuilding after a knockout defeat.
Before then, on April 11, Tyson Fury will have fought Arslanbek Makhmudov. Unlike Wardley-Dubois, Fury-Makhmudov’s appealing not because it’s a competitive match-up, but because Fury’s involved.
What it amounts to is seeing what Fury has left. If he has enough left then this is an easy fight for him. Makhmudov’s rugged and strong, but he’s very limited – to the extent that even if Fury’s declined further since the second of his defeats by Usyk he should still be good enough to win.
Makhmudov looks mean but he’s easy to hit and doesn’t have the most convincing of chins. A likelier outcome than Fury being tested is him deliberately boxing and trying to make the fight last a few rounds.
Frank Warren’s said Fury wants a third fight with Usyk and I recognise the appeal involved in another date between two big names like that but it’s also important for the heavyweight division that it keeps moving and that means Usyk fighting someone like Agit Kabayel, like he’s been ordered to. Fury’s best hope of a trilogy fight might even be in winning the WBO title from Wardley or Dubois.
On April 4, Deontay Wilder fights Derek Chisora.
Chisora, we know, doesn’t have much left, but he still roars at his opponents and he’s still intense. Wilder, by comparison, has looked particularly limited – at times almost totally shot.
It’s difficult to look at Chisora and think that he has more than a few rounds in him at any real intensity, but anyone capable of backing Wilder up can take his power away from him and make him totally ineffective.
Wilder-Chisora is more an interesting fight – because of their style match-up and their names – than a good fight. Close to his peak Wilder – who if he wins may well end up fighting Usyk – could have been expected to catch and stop Chisora early, but they’ve simply both declined too much to conclude otherwise. The limited Chisora just has more than the limited Wilder, and probably wins.
