Joseph Parker vs Fabio Wardley winner to face Oleksandr Usyk next

Dubois v Parker was already known about at the beginning of December 2024.
Later on in December 2024, in the ring after Fury 2, Dubois and Usyk appear to verbally agree to a rematch.
Then Dubois pulls out of the Parker fight on February 20th, 2025.
Then Usyk stated he wanted Dubois again to TalkSport on February 21st.
Then Usyk gave an interview to DAZN while in attendance at the Parker card (LOL) stating it again that he wanted Dubois next.

When Usyk beat Dubois 2, wasn't Parker the one name missing from his desired next opponents

 

Makes sense. Kabayel is in line for a WBC title shot right after Parker as WBC interim champion. Fighting Parker without a belt on the line does nothing for him. Imagine, he drops the WBC for the opportunity to be next in line by fighting Parker, then Usyk drops the WBO belt anyway. I'm sure if you had to choose to be an email champion, every boxer on earth would prefer the WBC title over WBO.

 

Usyk's team says that the next fight will be for the undisputed, so they are not going to drop the belts and will fight the winner of the fight Parker Wardley next time.
https://rtfight.com/news/lapin-on-usyk-wbo-decision
«We thank the WBO for carefully reviewing the case and our arguments. On July 19, 2025, Oleksandr Usyk fought a title bout for the third time in 14 months and once again became the undisputed champion of the world. These victories came at the cost of immense discipline, dedication, and grueling camps — the first of which lasted nearly nine months due to repeated postponements. Such strain requires proper and sufficiently long rehabilitation. Usyk has not been prescribed bed rest; he is allowed to take part in charity sporting events and engage in moderate physical activity. But it’s obvious that dancing or attending events is not the same as a three-month training camp for a title fight.

Oleksandr has earned the time to recover. And after that, fans will see him back in the ring — ready for new great fights. Right now, our team is considering new opportunities and an exciting location to stage another fight for the undisputed world championship. In the meantime, we wish good luck to Joseph Parker and Fabio Wardley — may the best man win»

 

So if Fabio lands a lucky one and then gets to face usyk for a guaranteed loss, Parker will cry for a week; but then if he can’t beat Fabio what’s the point in fighting usyk.

 

Its good to see them making a statement on this and being clear that Usyk will fight again. But I'm not sure what they mean by new opportunities? I wish they had just straight out stated that they are fighting the winner of Parker vs Wardley.

 

Usyk is at the age where one of these fights he will get old overnight. He should fight one more guy then retire.

 

Something Usyk is very passionate about is fighting in his home country. Specifically at the Olympic stadium in Kyiv. There has also been more than a little bit of talk of Usyk fighting Jake Paul under MMA rules.

 

I think Kabayel deserves a fight with Usyk far more than Parker and this bothers me given how much longer Kabayel had to wait for his first title shot.

But I have a hunch this fight won't happen. And this is one of a myraid of headlines that go nowhere.

B24 could open a whole other new website with 21st century boxing headlines announcing things that did not happen. This is most likely one of them.

 

How does Kabayel deserve his title shot more? He has fought bums once or twice a year at home for years and then beats one genuine top 10 fighter in Zhang, and a crippled borderline top 10 in Sanchez.

Contrast this to Parker who beat two top 5 fighters, and a top 10 in Bakole* and is now challenging another top 10 even though he doesn't have to. While Kabayel is looking likely to fight another unranked fighter at home.

Also the WBO is next in rotation and hasn't had a mandatory defence in four years which Parker is Interim for, where as the WBC was defended 3.5 years ago and the WBC is also not an org that really enforces defenses like the WBO.

Plus Parker is a former titlist with a much deeper resume and has been doing the media duties, going to the big fights and making noise while Kabayel waits at home for the big fights to fall into his lap.

The only measure in which one could say that Kabayel "deserves" it more is because the fight might be more interesting due to Kabayel's style.

 

Parker got his first title shot like 8 years earlier and hes lost 3 times and barely beat Zhang. Kabayel is undefeated. Kabayels lack of competition isn't his fault its why he deserves the unifier more hes been treading water so egregiously long.

 

The facts are that Parker has beaten more higher ranked fighters in his recent run than Kabayel and is the WBO interim. You can say that you think Kabayel performed better, but that comes under the point I made about Kabayel being the more interesting fight for Usyk.

Also what makes you think that Kabayel has no agency in his situation? He has more agency than anyone else. It was his choice to not capitalize of the Chisora win all those years ago and instead fight bums at home in low risk easy fights.

If it weren't for Turki offering him a big enough purse to get off his backside and actually put himself out there he would probably still be at home fighting nobodies once a year.

Parker came from even worse circumstances boxing wise, way smaller market in NZ, little to no boxing infrastructure that he had to travel all the way to the US to train. And he hustled, self promoting constantly, did all the interviews, gave a big chunk of his purses to Arum to get the title shot, traveled all the way to the UK even as champ to try and build a profile, took hard fights, took the risks his whole career. Sure he got beat, but that's what happens when a fighter does that.

The person most responsible for his "treading water" is Kabayel himself. You can even see now he is looking at fighting an unranked Hysa where as Parker is risking it all against a top 10 Wardley.

 

Kabayel is the WBC interim. They are both interims.

I get the argument normally the guy from Europe got the call over the guy from NZ or Australia even if that guy from down under was probably better. In this particular time period and this particular situation the opposite happened. We are dealing with this situation not historical inequality.

Parker was a titlist who'd "broken through" to the top level long before Turki came along.

 

And the current situation is that Parker has beaten more higher ranked opponents than Kabayel and is hustling to land fights. He travels across the world to all the big fights, does the interviews, the media rounds, calls for the fights, pushes his management etc. While Kabayel sits in Germany waiting for it all to fall into his lap.

Plus the point about being the WBO Interim is that the WBO is next in line and actually enforces their mandatories compared to the WBC.

 

Fury hadn't beaten a ranked contender in years going into the Usyk fight and just come off the Ngannou debacle that many thought he lost. If Floyd did something like that his critics would be tearing it apart and arguing it was a cherry pick.

 

What a load of rubbish. He's undefeated because he chose not to take on risky fights.

If Parker, from a country with a population of 5 million in the ass end of nowhere, can get fights what's Kabayels excuse?