Fabio Wardley sat at The Plough on Dog’s Head Street in Ipswich, beer in hand, watching Joseph Parker lose his WBO heavyweight title to Anthony Joshua.
Parker produced a somewhat tepid display as Wardley watched on in the pub.
The New Zealander was overly respectful of the Londoner and former Olympic gold medallist who – when they boxed in 2018 – had not yet tasted defeat, and Parker lost for the first time.
On October 25, at London’s O2 Arena, Wardley – who’d only had four pro fights by that point – will fight Parker in a contest the winner hopes will generate a fight for the undisputed title.
“He [Parker] won his first world title in 2016,” Wardley said. “In 2016, I was still fighting as a white-collar [boxer].
“So, yeah, it’s a bit of a funny one. I think that’s probably the first time I saw him... I remember sitting in the pub with my friends, watching the fight [against Joshua], and just looking at it and not... And, again, having no real thought, concept, plan of, ‘Oh, I’m going to be after you in a few years’, and just watching it as a casual and as a fan. But 10 years later, look, here we are, and it’s me and him. I think that night I might have had a few [beers], yeah, but I'm not the type to get leery or something like that.”
There was no part of Wardley that thought he would ascend to the heights he occupies. He’s the WBA’s number-one contender. It’s not like he watched Parker and thought anything like, “Yeah, I can beat him”, or “One day, I’m sure our paths will cross”.
Their trajectories could not be further removed.
“Not at all,” Wardley, the Ben Davison-trained 30-year-old, said.
“I’d been fighting other geezers from the pub. Even then, I was just watching as a fan of boxing and was intrigued to watch the fight.
“I was purely just watching as a fan, just observing, watching, tuning in, like anyone else would. Not looking at him, dissecting his game and picking him apart and going, ‘Right, I can do this, this, this, this, this’.
“Because at that point, I couldn’t do any of that. Even if I did have a look, I wouldn’t be able to pull any of it off. So, yeah, look, it took 10 years’ worth of graft and learning. And now I’m in a place where I look at him and go, ‘All right, cool, I do see them holes. I do see them gaps’.”
Wardley, as a pro, is 19-0-1 (18 KOs). In June, he was being outboxed by Australia’s Justis Huni until he uncorked one of the best right hands of 2025 to turn it all around in round 10.
And while, back then in the pub, Wardley never knew what he wanted to do or certainly what he could do, lacing the gloves up for the first time gave his life direction.
“When I had my first white-collar fight, that’s solidified to me that I found my thing,” he explained.
“I found my sport, but more than my sport, I don’t know – calling, passion, whatever you want to call it. After I had my first white-collar fight, I got my hand raised and I felt the roar in the crowd and people cheering my name and I really thought this is a buzz I could get used to.
“And then after my first pro fight, again, same buzz, but different kind of scale, bit more to it, and I thought, ‘Yeah, you know what, I want to go full force into this and put everything into it as much as possible’.”
