Fabio Wardley is rapidly advancing up the heavyweight rankings and is hoping to continue his form into the New Year.
As a result of his progress, the Suffolk-born British Champion has been invited for sparring with Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk and has now revealed his prediction for their clash having shared the ring with both.
Wardley defeated David Adeleye by seventh-round knockout on the undercard of Fury’s controversial split-decision win against Francis Ngannou, just two months after Usyk was floored for four minutes by a ‘borderline’ body shot from Daniel Dubois.
With both Fury and Usyk are coming off of the back of eyebrow-raising performances ahead of what is arguably the biggest heavyweight fight since the turn of the millennium, when speaking the The Sun, Wardley argued that this could work in both of their favours – but predicts Usyk to walk away with the belts.
“Them as opponents compared to who they had those fights against are very different, but there’s still obvious parts there in terms of where both could maybe slip up or not come with their A-game. I think for each of them, when you know that the fight means a lot more, when you know the opponent is of a different grade, it makes you train different, it makes you work for it differently, especially coming off both of those performances as well, both have something to prove.
In terms of who wins, I’ve always edged towards Usyk, I always have. It’s probably an interesting one for people but I always have, that doesn’t mean that I don’t think Fury can win because I wholeheartedly do. I just think that somehow, someway, it’s very hard to bet against Usyk, he always seems to just be crafty enough and do whatever needs to be done to beat the opponent in front of him.”
Fury-Usyk will finally meet in the ring on February 17th in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with the undercard set to be announced imminently.