On Saturday (Oct. 17th), at London’s o2 Arena, a classic heavyweight rematch takes place between Daniel Dubois (pictured) and Fabio Wardley, who'll be going at it hammer and tongs. Back in May, they engaged in one of the best heavyweight encounters in recent memory. Dubois survived a pair of knockdowns and came back to stop Wardley by eleventh-round technical knockout in Manchester, England. With the win, Dubois took Wardley's WBO championship and became a two-time champion. Although he scored the only two knockdowns of the encounter, it was Wardley who absorbed a terrifying amount of punishment.
If the rematch wasn’t contracted with Wardley calling in his rematch clause within days of taking his first career loss, the rematch would be the subject of public demand.
With the inevitable departure from the scene of Tyson Fury, Oleksandr Usyk and Anthony Joshua over the next year or two at most, the heavyweight division has been presented with pretty much a blank canvas. Still considered the world champion, Usyk took a step back by vacating his title belts, which opened up doors for the likes of Dubois, Wardley, Agit Kabayel, Murat Gassiev and Filip Hrgovic.
Should he win on Saturday, Wardley will join Dubois, Fury and Joshua in the record books as being a two-time heavyweight champion from Great Britain. It is not the way he would have chosen to pick up the accolade, but it will look good in the history books nonetheless.
Dubois has now proudly held the WBA Regular - if you choose to count it - plus the IBF and WBO world heavyweight titles. You could make an argument that he is currently The Man of the division, with his title successes and triumphs over the likes of the previously unbeaten Jarrell Miller, Hrgovic and Wardley, along with Joshua.
This new unfolding heavyweight era is that it is largely shaping up on British soil. Saturday will be the third heavyweight championship event to be staged in the UK so far this year. And then we’ve got Fury and Joshua finally coming to blows in December.
