Daniel Dubois Needed Two Rounds to End Fabio Wardley and Should Fight Hrgovic Next
Fabio Wardley asked for the rematch, and he got about four minutes of it. Daniel Dubois dropped him, battered him along the ropes, and watched Wardley’s corner throw in the towel at 2:21 of round two on Saturday night at the O2 Arena in London.
Dubois keeps his WBO heavyweight title and moves to 24-3 with 23 wins inside the distance. Wardley walked in at 20-1-1 with 19 knockouts and walks out with two losses, both to the same man, and no argument left to make.
The First Fight Gave Wardley False Hope
Back in May, Wardley was the WBO champion and he put Dubois on the floor twice inside the first three rounds before Dubois rallied to stop him in the 11th. That night built a myth: that Wardley had cracked the code on hurting Dubois early, and that a second crack with a full camp would flip the result.
Saturday killed the myth in the opening three minutes. Dubois set up the right hand behind a jab, Wardley hit the canvas, and the rest of the round was Dubois hunting a finish while Wardley absorbed shots he had no business absorbing. The bell was the only thing that saved him.
Round two was a formality. Dubois found the same openings, Wardley went down again, and his corner made the decision his legs had already made for him. Good on them. There was nothing left to win by letting that round run its course.
Dubois Should Take Hrgovic Now, Not in 2027
Oleksandr Usyk vacated all four heavyweight belts, so the division now has four champions and a very short window to sort itself out before casual fans stop caring. Dubois holds the WBO version. Filip Hrgovic holds the IBF version, and he climbed into the ring afterward to face off with Dubois and float a March date.
Hrgovic also said Dubois had an easy night, which is a bold thing to say about the man who stopped you in the eighth round in 2024. That remains the only loss on Hrgovic’s record. He has every right to want it back. He has no right to pretend the first one was competitive.
Promoter Frank Warren named no opponent in the ring, and Dubois talked about big unification money in 2027. That timeline is too slow. Heavyweight boxing goes stale fast when four men sit on four belts and wait for the biggest offer to arrive. Dubois just produced the most emphatic win of his career in front of a home crowd. Cash that in while people are still talking about it.
Wardley Needs a Year Off, Not Another Belt
Wardley is 20-2-1 and still one of the most watchable heavyweights in Britain. He has also now taken two serious beatings from the same opponent inside five months. He insisted the quick turnaround was not an issue for him. It looked like one from the first clean punch.
The smart move is a long break and a careful rebuild, not a sprint at whichever title comes loose next. His corner showed excellent judgment on Saturday by stopping it early. The next good decision is refusing to rush him back into a room like that.
As for Dubois, he did the hardest thing a heavyweight can do with a rematch everybody wanted. He made it boring.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
