Even the most hardened boxing fans can be taken aback by the depths of brutality which two men are capable of inflicting on each other. Especially the heavyweights.
So it was on the Saturday night this May when Daniel Dubois and Fabio Wardley battered hell’s bells out of each other in Manchester’s Co-op Live Arena. Wardley dropped his world title challenger twice in the first three rounds. Just 28 seconds into the 11th, Dubois had to be pulled off the champion he had reduced to a bleeding and battered but still-standing wreck.
We mere mortals can only ask: How on earth do they do it? ‘We’re fighters,’ says Dubois. ‘Honoured to share a ring with him.’
‘Born to do it,’ says Wardley, who found out that truth of himself when he tried white collar boxing. ‘Love being in with such a great fighter.’
What in heaven goes through their minds at the prospect of doing it again, as they are on Saturday night at the O2? Do they not realise the danger this sledgehammer head-banging presents to their health?
Prepare yourselves, dear gentle readers, for this stunning answer from Dubois: ‘Dementia? If you’re talking about dementia, no point worrying. We’ve probably got it already.’
Daniel Dubois and Fabio Wardley have both spoken of their love for stepping into the ring with one another ahead of their rematch on Saturday
But as brutal as their meeting in May was, tomorrow night’s clash at the O2 has been teased as even bloodier
A chilling insight, this, into the mentality of men who fight not only for a living but for the lust for glory, the thrill of battle, the roar of the crowd, the smell of the greasepaint, the glare of the lights and not least their manly pride.
And on nights like this, for a world championship. This time the WBO belt which Dubois ripped from Wardley’s fairy-tale grasp five months ago.
What, no nerves? ‘I live with the chaos,’ says Dubois. ‘Chaos all day every day and specially on the night. I love the fear. It gives me the power. I hold the chaos in until it’s at its peak when the first bell goes. Then it explodes as I let it out. Which brings power and clarity.’
Wardley comes not only from his different background in commerce but also with an opposite mindset. He says: ‘No one wants to lose a world title but if it has to be, then what really matters is how it happens.
‘I feel more relaxed and confident having proved I can engage a top-level fighter in a great fight, which everyone expected me to lose easily. Calm makes me better.’
That and the lessons he learned in the five months since his gladiatorial — and only — defeat thus far. ‘We’ve studied every critical moment of the first fight,’ he says. ‘And I’ve adapted where necessary. Had to because I have more to work on than Daniel with all his experience.
‘But we’ve not only looked at me. We’ve looked at him. He’s not as adaptable as me. He’s not suddenly going to become light-footed and free moving. I’ll give him something different.’
To which Dubois says: ‘I’ll give him another beating. Bash him up. Smash him worse than before. And quicker. We didn’t know quite what he might do in the first fight. Now I know what to expect.
‘I also know that he’s not good enough to adapt. I’m his daddy now.’ That is clarity, Dubois style. He also discounts those two knock-downs. As a man who has been a slow starter at times — although not when he demolished Anthony Joshua from the get-go — he says: ‘Things happen in boxing. You can get caught. But I also know now that he doesn’t have the power. No real power.’
Wardley, for his part, denies that he was as badly hurt as it appeared in fight one. Their respective trainers have disagreed about the 11th-hour stoppage. Dubois’ coach Don Charles says the towel should have been thrown in earlier.
Wardley supports his man Ben Davison’s assertion that he was still in the fight throwing punches, saying: ‘The optics looked bad, what with the blood and the bruising and the punches. But I trust my team to take care of me. Trust them with my life.
‘A lot of the punches were glancing and in the 10th round I shook him with an uppercut. If the big right that followed had connected cleanly we might have had a different ending.’
This man who escaped office drudgery to chase his dream hopes to go on to meet the December winner of Joshua v Tyson Fury. Dubois fancies some of that big money but is also looking beyond, to unifying all the other world titles vacated by Oleksandr Usyk.
Will the ending on Saturday be different from Wardley v Dubois One? Probably not. Dynamite Dan likely added the more valuable knowledge to his wider experience and has never looked this bullish before a fight.
What we do know for sure is that this pair will give us another thriller.
