Promoter of Fabio Wardley, Frank Warren, spoke with Sky Sports today, and the topic of conversation was a possible return fight between his man Fabio Wardley and Australian warrior Justis Huni. As fans may be aware, Huni – who was miles ahead on all three scorecards on Saturday, before Wardley sensationally turned the fight completely around with a right hand bomb – spoke of launching an appeal, stating that he had beaten the count, with the referee then waving the fight off prematurely.
At least members of Huni’s team said they would be lodging an appeal. Now, Warren says that although an appeal would achieve nothing, the return fight could happen anyway.
“People would buy into that,” Warren said with regards to a Wardley-Huni II. “It was a good fight. It was a really good, edge of your seat fight. I loved it, perversely I loved it especially the end of it. It was an unbelievable punch. The whole place went crazy. Justis doesn’t complain at all. He knew. If he’d carried on, he’d have got badly hurt.”
Fans would indeed like to see a sequel to the thriller that went down in Wardley’s hometown of Ipswich on Saturday, and maybe it will happen. Where the fight would take place is a good question. But as Warren went on to say, Wardley, now 19-0-1(18) has plenty of other options as WBA interim heavyweight champ.
“He’s now the WBA interim champion, so he’s in a good position,” Warren said of Fabio. “We’ve got the big show on July 19 with Usyk and Dubois. Four belts on the line. Once that fight takes place, somebody is going to hold those belts and then the governing bodies will start calling for their mandatory defences. Most of them are overdue. The first one will be the WBO, which is Joseph Parker. I think the next one after that probably is the WBA.”
We will see what happens post-July 19. Will Usyk, if he wins, vacate some of his belts rather than fulfil certain mandatory requirements in fights that do not interest him? If so, might Wardley fight TBA for the full WBA belt? Or if Dubois wins the Usyk rematch, what then?
As Warren said, “the heavyweight division’s on fire at the moment.”
Can Fabio Wardley become a legit world heavyweight champion? And can Huni, 12-1(7) bounce back another way if he doesn’t get a rematch?
