They started the night by focusing as much on the past as the present or future and it did them no good. Already the pay-per-view, and especially its undercard, had faced criticism and now, just to compound matters, viewers were treated with the rather grim spectacle of Derek Chisora and Dillian Whyte, two old heavyweight rivals, trying to soft launch a December 13 fight on DAZN pay-per-view. It hardly screamed “must watch”, did it? Nor, and perhaps more worryingly, did it suggest British boxing, or its heavyweight scene, was in a particularly healthy place as 2025 draws to a close.
After all, Whyte and Chisora have had their time. They had a couple of fights – one in 2016, the other in 2018 – and nobody in the subsequent seven years has expressed a desire to see the rivalry extend to a third. Yet that won’t stop it happening, of course – not when both remain desperate to fight/make money, and not when British boxing struggles so desperately for marketable names and meaningful fights.
Even if Whyte vs Chisora III is not necessarily that – a meaningful fight – their names alone will be enough to push it over the line and get it done. That doesn’t mean anybody will watch it – they won’t – but in an age when gate receipts and pay-per-view numbers don’t actually matter in the grand scheme of things (thanks in large part to a certain Middle-East based sponsor), it’s only a bit of fun anyway. Sit back, reminisce, enjoy.
Besides, for excitement, you could have looked elsewhere on Saturday in London. You could, for example, have looked towards the man standing on stage with Whyte and Chisora, whose most recent win was a first-round knockout of Whyte in August. That man, of course, is Moses Itauma, widely considered not only the best prospect in the heavyweight division, but the best prospect in the entire sport.
Itauma, however, is still just 20 years of age and therefore represents the future rather than the here and now. Try as they might, he isn’t quite ready to headline a pay-per-view just yet. Nor, despite the constant pushing of some, is he going to step up and fight Oleksandr Usyk, the world heavyweight champion, anytime soon.
Instead, for jobs like that, British boxing can perhaps turn to Fabio Wardley, the heavy-handed and refreshingly unique puncher from Ipswich. He, on Saturday, found himself in the underdog role for the first time in his professional career against Joseph Parker and didn’t just confound the doubters, but he did so in a way that indicated there was, at heavyweight, something fresh and exciting on the scene. At a time when the likes of Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua, Dillian Whyte and Derek Chisora are either out or on their way out, Daniel Dubois is rebuilding, and Moses Itauma is still learning, here, in the shape of Wardley, British heavyweight boxing suddenly had what it has been begging for: a man for today.
Now, that’s not to say Wardley is the finished article – he certainly isn’t. Yet much of what creates both Wardley’s appeal and his danger is the very fact that he is not the finished article and boasts as many rough edges as smooth ones. Knowing this, which we did, all we needed to see from him last night against Parker was proof that these rough edges could work for him at a higher level and baffle world-rated contenders the same way they had baffled also-rans. We got it, too – proof, I mean. He might have been down on two of the three judges’ cards at the time of the stoppage (one by six points, the other by two), but Wardley’s dramatic 11th-round finish of Parker showed that his come-from-behind victory over Justis Huni in June was no fluke or lucky punch. It also showed that his power, which bailed him out against Huni four months ago, is sufficient to damage a heavyweight, in Parker, who had previously survived the likes of Deontay Wilder, Zhilei Zhang and Anthony Joshua.
If that’s not enough to get you excited about Fabio Wardley, consider this: he alone is now responsible for two of the more thrilling moments in what has been an otherwise barren and quite concerning year in British boxing. Thanks to him, you had the big “wow” moment of the year, when he KO’d Huni from out of nowhere, and then, last night, he played his part in what was undoubtedly one of the best fights we have seen so far in Britain in 2025.
For a heavyweight, that is important. After all, it is often the heavyweights we tend to turn to when we want those two things: big power and entertainment. In Wardley, it appears we now have a heavyweight capable of delivering both. Better yet, we have a man whose swift ascent allows us to ignore certain other British heavyweights, and certain other British heavyweight fights, and instead concentrate on the stuff that really matters going forward.
For Wardley, that could mean Oleksandr Usyk, the world’s number one. It is Usyk he wants next, by all accounts, and Wardley’s promoter, Frank Warren, claims he will now do all he can to make that fight. He has a right to it, too, Wardley, what with last night’s win landing him the WBO interim heavyweight title and putting him in a mandatory challenger position. From there, he should conceivably challenge Usyk next. Not just that, there is the sense with Wardley that he should strike while the iron’s hot and capitalise on this gathering momentum in his career. Even though he is only 30, young by heavyweight standards, Wardley’s unpredictability and awkwardness is something to use now, not something you try to work on/eradicate, or put to further testing against other styles. By then it could be too late, of course. By then someone may have come along and figured him out, thus removing that danger and that air of mystique he currently possesses.
Will that alone be enough to trouble a fighter as great as Oleksandr Usyk? It’s unlikely. But that doesn’t mean Wardley shouldn’t now get his chance, nor does it mean the fight has no value. In fact, on a night when fights of no value were being tested on a bored-and-apathetic focus group, the idea of Wardley being the man to face Usyk next all of a sudden carried huge appeal. Stylistically, it tickles the fancy more than a fight between Usyk and Parker, that’s for sure, and it also offers us the chance to see Usyk, so technically perfect, share the ring with someone who seemingly breaks all the rules but makes rule-breaking work for them. What makes that exciting, if you know your boxing history, is the fact that time and time again we have seen technical masters meet their match at the hands of opponents who do everything backwards, or just wrong.
Then again, perhaps that’s doing Wardley a disservice. Last night, he certainly showed there was more to his game than just power and the swing of a right hand. He showed a good chin, he showed good powers of recovery, and he showed good stamina, too, with him as active in the final rounds of the fight as he was early on. He must also be commended for the way he frequently finds a home for that fight-turning right hand and how its accuracy never fails him. When he needs it, it’s there. Always. If that isn’t down to technique, or practice, I don’t know what is.
The big question now, as British boxing continues to self-sabotage and hide behind apps, paywalls and pay-per-views, is whether anybody was even aware of Wardley’s exploits last night in London. Did people know it was happening? Did anybody care? All week there were ticket offers and giveaways, which never looks good, and then, on the night itself, the only sight more depressing than Whyte and Chisora flogging damaged goods was the sight of many empty blue seats inside the O2 Arena. If that suggests the tickets were hard to shift, one wonders how many paid twice – subscription, then pay-per-view price – to watch it at home.
Make no mistake, this is a very different time for British boxing and Fabio Wardley is, as a result, a very different kind of British heavyweight. He is not, for instance, blessed with the platform enjoyed by Derek Chisora and Dillian Whyte in the past, much less someone like Anthony Joshua, and with this Wardley, 20-0-1 (19 KOs), has to make peace. His career, unlike theirs, has been built away from the gaze of the general sports public and only a fight – and win – against Oleksandr Usyk will elevate him to old-fashioned stardom. He will, in other words, have to really work for it. He will have to work for every opportunity he gets and he will have to work for every glance of recognition he receives in the street.
But just know that if you look away and miss him, you’re missing out. You’re missing out on everything you would want to see in a heavyweight contender in 2025 and you’re missing out on a British heavyweight making waves due to excitement and success rather than infamy, crass talk, or the ability to go viral. Indeed, if we can agree that Whyte-Chisora represents the past, and Moses Itauma is the future, we can now say with confidence that Fabio Wardley is the present.
You might also call him a gift. The gift that keeps giving.