Daniel Dubois vs Fabio Wardley 2 will take place at London’s O2 Arena on 17 October, with Dubois defending the WBO heavyweight championship he took from Wardley in their first fight.
And I’m looking forward to it.
Their first meeting was everything heavyweight boxing is supposed to be if entertainment is the only measurement that matters. Wardley dropped Dubois twice, Dubois survived, the momentum shifted and eventually Wardley was stopped in the eleventh round after absorbing increasingly heavy punishment.
It was dramatic, unpredictable and exactly the sort of fight that makes heavyweight boxing compelling.
But there is another way of looking at Daniel Dubois vs Fabio Wardley 2.
These are now two of Britain’s leading heavyweights.
Not prospects. Not domestic contenders trying to reach the next level. One is the WBO heavyweight champion and the other held the same title before losing it to him.
With Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua approaching the end of their careers, Dubois and Wardley are increasingly becoming part of the generation expected to replace them.
And that leaves me with an uncomfortable question.
Are either of them actually that good?
Because perhaps the biggest thing their first fight demonstrated wasn’t how good Daniel Dubois and Fabio Wardley are.
Perhaps it showed how far the standard of British heavyweight boxing has fallen.
Daniel Dubois vs Fabio Wardley 2 Comes at the End of a Golden Era
British boxing has been ridiculously fortunate at heavyweight.
For much of the last decade, we’ve had Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua operating at or around the very top of the division.
Whatever you think about either man, their achievements cannot seriously be questioned.
Fury travelled to Germany and ended Wladimir Klitschko’s decade-long dominance before later returning from nearly three years outside the ring to become a world champion again.
Joshua became a two-time unified heavyweight champion, defeated numerous established contenders and turned heavyweight boxing into a stadium attraction in Britain.
We became used to it.
Perhaps too used to it.
Having two British heavyweights simultaneously operating among the best fighters in the world started to feel normal when historically it was anything but.
Now that era is coming to an end.
Fury is 38. Joshua turns 37 in October. They might both have significant fights remaining, but neither represents the long-term future of British heavyweight boxing.
So take them away.
Who is left?
That is when the picture starts becoming considerably less impressive.
Daniel Dubois Has Rebuilt His Career – But the Questions Remain
Daniel Dubois deserves credit.
There was a period when plenty of people had effectively written him off. The defeats, the criticism of the way those fights ended and the questions about whether he possessed the mentality required at the highest level threatened to define his career.
He has responded impressively.
Dubois has become a world champion, rebuilt his reputation and demonstrated that he possesses considerably more resilience than some of his critics gave him credit for.
The first Wardley fight was another example.
Dubois was dropped twice and still won.
That matters.
But we seem to have reached a strange point in boxing where recovering from serious problems can make everyone forget that those problems existed in the first place.
Dubois was still dropped twice by Fabio Wardley.
He was still vulnerable.
He still found himself in a situation where the fight could easily have disappeared before he eventually took control.
Against Wardley, he survived long enough to turn things around.
Against a genuinely elite heavyweight, does he get that opportunity?
That remains my problem with Dubois.
His power is obvious. His physical attributes are obvious. His improvement is obvious.
So are the vulnerabilities.
He can look destructive when a fight is moving his way and surprisingly uncertain when it isn’t.
That doesn’t make him a bad heavyweight.
It makes me question whether being one of the best heavyweights Britain currently possesses is the same thing as being one of the best heavyweights in the world.
Those two things haven’t always been separate.
They might be now.
Fabio Wardley Has Built an Incredible Career
Fabio Wardley might have one of the most remarkable career stories in British boxing.
This is somebody who came through white-collar boxing rather than the traditional elite amateur system and somehow reached the point where he became a heavyweight world champion.
That deserves enormous respect.
Wardley has also repeatedly demonstrated qualities you cannot teach.
Heart.
Power.
Self-belief.
And an almost ridiculous ability to remain dangerous when a fight appears to be getting away from him.
We’ve seen him rescue situations that looked increasingly desperate. We’ve seen opponents seemingly establish control only for Wardley to find the punch that changes everything.
It makes him incredibly entertaining.
It also makes me nervous when people start describing him as an elite heavyweight.
There is a difference between repeatedly finding a way to win and repeatedly controlling high-level opposition.
At some point, relying on power to rescue you stops working.
Against Dubois, it eventually did.
Wardley had already dropped him twice. He had created exactly the type of chaotic fight in which he thrives.
But Dubois survived.
And once that happened, Wardley gradually ran out of answers.
Courage kept him fighting.
It couldn’t win him the fight.
Their First Fight Might Have Exposed Both Men
This is where Daniel Dubois vs Fabio Wardley 2 becomes particularly interesting.
You can look at their first fight and find positives for both men.
Wardley proved he could hurt Dubois.
Dubois proved he could recover from being hurt.
Wardley showed his usual fearlessness.
Dubois showed patience and eventually imposed himself.
But you can just as easily reverse every one of those arguments.
Why was Dubois so vulnerable in the first place?
Why couldn’t Wardley adjust once Dubois survived his early success?
Why did a world heavyweight championship fight between two of Britain’s leading fighters become so chaotic?
Maybe because both men are extremely dangerous.
Maybe also because both men are flawed.
Boxing fans sometimes confuse a competitive fight with a high-quality fight.
They aren’t necessarily the same thing.
Two fighters can produce incredible entertainment because neither possesses the ability to completely control the other.
That doesn’t diminish the spectacle.
It just changes what the spectacle tells us.
Then Moses Itauma Ran Into Filip Hrgovic
Until recently, there appeared to be an obvious answer to any concerns about Britain’s heavyweight future.
Moses Itauma.
He was the phenomenon coming through behind everyone else.
Young, frighteningly quick for a heavyweight, destructive and seemingly progressing at a ridiculous rate.
At only 21, Itauma entered his first heavyweight world-title fight unbeaten and attempting to become the second-youngest heavyweight champion in history.
For eight rounds against Filip Hrgovic, he looked capable of doing it.
Then heavyweight boxing taught him a lesson.
Itauma tired. Hrgovic didn’t disappear. The experienced Croatian survived everything the youngster threw at him and eventually stopped him.
I’ve already argued that the defeat could ultimately make Itauma a better heavyweight:
I still believe that.
Losing at 21 should not define Moses Itauma’s career. If anything, discovering those weaknesses now gives him years to address them.
But the defeat also changed the British heavyweight conversation.
The fighter many people had already mentally installed as the successor to Fury and Joshua isn’t ready yet.
He might become Britain’s next great heavyweight.
He isn’t one today.
So once again, look at what remains.
Where Is the British Heavyweight Depth?
Take Fury and Joshua out because their careers are approaching their conclusion.
Itauma is an outstanding prospect who has just discovered he still has significant development ahead of him.
Dubois is a world champion whose vulnerabilities continue to appear.
Wardley is a former world champion whose extraordinary heart and power sometimes disguise technical limitations.
Then what?
This is where British heavyweight boxing suddenly looks remarkably thin.
It wasn’t always this way.
For years, Britain didn’t simply have Fury and Joshua.
There was depth beneath them.
Dillian Whyte spent years around world-title contention. Derek Chisora fought virtually everybody available and somehow remained relevant across multiple generations. Joe Joyce reached the brink of a world-title opportunity before his career dramatically unravelled.
There were established names, contenders and prospects.
Now we seem to have reached a point where the hierarchy is becoming increasingly dependent on what happens between Dubois, Wardley and eventually Itauma.
Maybe that is enough.
But compared with what British boxing has become accustomed to, it represents an enormous decline.
A World Title Doesn’t Automatically Answer the Question
This is where people will inevitably point towards the belt.
Dubois is the WBO heavyweight champion.
Wardley held it before him.
How can they not be elite?
Because boxing has never been that simple.
World titles tell us somebody has reached an extremely high level. They don’t automatically tell us that every champion represents the highest possible standard of their era.
Context matters.
Opposition matters.
Performance matters.
The heavyweight division is moving into a transitional period, and transitional periods create opportunities.
That isn’t an insult to anybody taking advantage of them.
Dubois still had to win the fights that put a world championship around his waist.
Wardley still had to complete one of the most unlikely journeys to a heavyweight world title we’ve seen in modern British boxing.
Those achievements are real.
But so are the questions.
And putting a belt around somebody’s waist shouldn’t prevent us from asking them.
Daniel Dubois vs Fabio Wardley 2 Needs to Show Us Something Different
That is what I want from the rematch.
Not simply another war.
We’ve already seen that.
I want to see development.
Dubois knows Wardley can hurt him. If he really is becoming an elite heavyweight, can he use the experience of the first fight to control the rematch rather than finding himself dragged into another crisis?
Wardley knows the early knockdowns weren’t enough. If he wants his WBO heavyweight championship back, what happens when the knockout doesn’t arrive?
Can he adjust?
Can he control rounds?
Can he find another route to victory?
Those questions interest me far more than whether Daniel Dubois vs Fabio Wardley 2 produces another highlight-reel fight.
Because entertainment isn’t what either man needs to prove.
We already know they’re entertaining.
They need to prove they’re genuinely elite.
Maybe Britain Has Been Spoiled
There is another possibility that British boxing might simply have to accept.
Perhaps Fury and Joshua distorted our expectations.
Perhaps having two British heavyweights operating at the very top of the sport for so long created a standard that was never sustainable.
Dubois doesn’t have to become Tyson Fury.
Wardley doesn’t have to become Anthony Joshua.
Itauma doesn’t have to become either of them.
Every generation is different.
But that doesn’t mean we should pretend the standard hasn’t changed.
Daniel Dubois vs Fabio Wardley 2 is a legitimate world heavyweight championship fight between two dangerous fighters, and it deserves to be treated as such.
I just don’t think we should automatically confuse that with watching two great heavyweights.
Not yet.
Maybe Dubois proves me wrong.
Maybe Wardley produces another extraordinary chapter in a career that has already repeatedly defied expectations.
Maybe Itauma learns from his defeat and eventually overtakes both of them.
But right now, British heavyweight boxing feels like it is standing between generations.
The Fury-Joshua era is almost over.
The Itauma era might eventually arrive.
And Daniel Dubois and Fabio Wardley are standing in the middle.
That makes Daniel Dubois vs Fabio Wardley 2 fascinating.
It also leaves one uncomfortable thought.
If these really are Britain’s best heavyweights right now, perhaps the bigger story isn’t how good Dubois and Wardley are.
Perhaps it’s how much weaker British heavyweight boxing has become.
Have Your Say
Am I being too harsh on Daniel Dubois and Fabio Wardley, or has British heavyweight boxing genuinely taken a significant step backwards as the Fury and Joshua era comes to an end?
Share the article with another boxing fan, leave your opinion in the comments and head over to CMBoxing for more independent boxing analysis, opinion and discussion.
Because after Daniel Dubois vs Fabio Wardley 2, there may be an even bigger question worth asking:
Is this just a British heavyweight problem – or is the entire heavyweight division getting weaker?