The 34-year-old Anthony Yarde was on Saturday stopped in seven rounds by David Benavidez in their fight for Benavidez’s WBC light heavyweight title. Joshua Buatsi was among those ringside, aware that old plans to make a contest between them could be revived.
It was in the summer of 2024 when attempts to match them in an all-London light-heavyweight fight ended in frustration, but after a year in which Yarde struggled to impress against Benavidez and Buatsi was fortunate to earn a decision over Zach Parker after having lost for the first time to Callum Smith, Warren knows that they are potentially on collision course again.
Warren’s inability to agree terms with Yarde in 2024 contributed to that frustration, but asked if he finally expected it to happen in 2026 told BoxingScene: “That fight’s there if it’s there, but it’s what the value is of the fight. What’s the value of the fight now?
“It’s a fight that if people still wanna see it it can be put on, but we’ll see. We’ll see what happens.”
Queensberry Promotions’ Warren – who signed a promotional agreement with Buatsi earlier in 2025 – was also ringside at the ANB Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for Benavidez-Yarde, where he questioned Yarde’s tactics.
“I just felt that he never used his strengths well,” he said. “There was no venom in his punches. He punches harder than that. I was screaming at him – ‘Take the centre of the ring and just keep him there with long shots; get that jab going’ – and when he was throwing the jab, he was having some success and letting straight shots go.
“When he did do it he had a bit of success, but there weren’t so much power there as I’d have liked to have seen, and once he was going on the ropes he was in trouble every time. I was screaming at him ‘Get off the ropes – what you doing on the ropes?’.”
It had previously been suggested that Yarde had declined as a consequence of his defeat in 2023 by Artur Beterbiev, but Warren said: “I don’t think it took anything out of him. I think he got his tactics completely wrong. It didn’t look like him in there to me.”
