Fabio Wardley vs. Daniel Dubois & Jack Rafferty vs. Ekow Essuman + David Morrell vs. Zak Chelli RBR.

Well i see your reasoning, but i have a different one.

After round four dubois countered almost every attempt from wardley with landing his jab first. That's what i meant. And this way wardley couldnt land anymore. On top of that dubois head movement behind his jab was super efficient.

I think it will be hard for wardley to set up his right hand better by using his jab, because he will be eating dubois jab every time he tries. But i might be wrong here, we'll see. I just think dubois' jab is on a different level and it should be clear who wins that duel. It will mostly cost wardley the time and the opportunity. But it is a way he could go about it. It would be better if he could adapt better footwork to stay outside of dubois' range and enter surprisingly when dubois is a bit out of position. But i think this is way too much to ask from a late adopter of the sport against someone like dubois.

Dubois staying voluntarily down for the ten count has often been answered as cowardly or whatever. Not really as a bad chin, which would be madness. See fury's reaction to a way less powerful punch. Dubois was moving into the punch, not expecting it, worst case. Usyk had his full body and movement and even the rhythm in that Punch. Might have been his hardest punch ever. How was wardley not totally unconscious? Because he has a great chin. Meaning he can take a hell of a punch. He wasn't even unbalanced after the ten count. He had his eyes open breathing really hard. Because he was exhausted. Imagine that on top. Receiving this punch when exhausted. This guy has a really good chin. He just doesn't want to use it for fun. The fight was lost, he knew it, he gave up. It was the right choice. Better than wardleys to continue against dubois.

And lastly yes - if wardley can consistently land hard right hands, he will win. But how likely is that? He landed one good Punch against huni and it was enough. He landed a few against parker but not enough to get him to a tko. Howard foster did that for him. And parker wasn't buzzed but exhausted. He stopped throwing relevant Numbers of punches like two rounds ago.

So yes maybe wardley lands 4 good punches next time, it still wouldn't be enough in my opinion. and i think it is more likely that dubois knows even better what to do next time. He saw how his jab worked. And he is the better technician. Timing Kills speed.

 

But Wardley didn't even attempt to throw the jab that's the point.

As Usyk said "Fabio where is jab".

Wardley probably thought Dubois was a quitter and he'd crumble under the pressure.

So once Wardley scored an early knockdown he abandoned any type of gameplan and just winged right hands thinking he had the job done already.

He thought wrong and his wild tactics got easily countered in the end, and then he had no energy or stamina to really defend himself in the 2nd half of the fight.

Dubois has a good jab but you can't let him dictate the fight aggressively behind the jab coming forward.

You see what happened to Joshua when that happened.

You have to stop Dubois in his tracks and stop that aggressive come forward approach he has behind the jab.

Wardley just needs to be a bit more savvy in setting up his punches he definitely has the power to seriously trouble Dubois.

He just needs to be a bit more creative in setting up the right hand and using the jab more.

Can Wardley do it and is his punch resistance now shot ? Who knows.

But I definitely think he can improve on just winging right hands with no gameplan like he did the 1st time.

 

Immediate rematches are the doom of so many fighters.

 

I swear, the boxing gods punish those who force the rematches. Regardless of if they win it or not, their career takes a nosedive anyways.

 

Wardley has zero amateur pedigree. Expecting him to be dancing around and jabbing is ridiculous. His game plan is banging guys out early or late because he cannot outbox them. Watch his fight with Huni - 10 round ls of boxing domination by a guy who did not have a full camp, one punch plus British stoppage and Wardley wins. Admittedly Huni looked shakey, but he was standing and after the punishment Wardley was allowed to take, it was ridiculous.

Thus, don't expect Wardley to take up a technical boxing approach in any of his fights. He should at least learn how to jab as fast as possible and move his head. That's about all he will be able to learn im the amount of time he has.

This may be Wardley's last big payday. After the success of the first fight, the rematch will be huge, albeit it could be a short night.

 

Dan learns to protect the top of his expansive napper, gets behind his jab early and smashes Fabio up quicker. Will he eat some big punches again? Yes. But he knows he can. The punches that decked him were positional, but he ate some hellacious digs to the chin throughout and didnt take a step back. Those disputing this surely watched a different fight than I did...

 

Hope wardley can bring more and doesn't just waste everyones time, money and his own health with the rematch.

I don't think the first knockdown was instrumental in making wardley overly trigger happy. At least i didn't see that at the time. It was a knockdown in the first ten seconds and then there were three rounds where i didn't always see him swinging. If he was unable to see that dubois is stable that would be ridiculous. At the second kd dubois was hurt, but it was towards the end of the round and at the beginning of the next he was fine. So not a lot of time to obliviously expend energy thinking dubois is almost done.
I think it is a narrative, needed to justify the rematch after that thorough demolition. For me it is hard to see wardley winning the second fight and surprising to see many fans seeing that differently

That said - i was a great fan of lee wylies Videos and if he saw something in the first Fight, who knows. Wardley with his speed and coordination might be able to pull it off like in the huni fight. But even with that wardley is a big underdog for me

 

Fabs has box seats at Portman Road for life.

 

.....and I forgot to say, many people are not giving DDD the credit he deserves. He has 3 losses, one blowing his load against the granite chinned Joe Joyce whose chin has been cracked by Zhang, and two against Usyk. You can't call him a quitter because he got up after 2 kds against Wardley.