WINNER IN PLAIN SIGHT F abio Wardley trudged back to his stool. He was losing the fight against a boxer with far more experience and notable amateur schooling.
who’d had both a decorated amateur career and two prison stints for violent offenses. “I know the referee, and he gave him about a 20 count because he didn’t want to get beaten up by this 200-strong crowd, who are calling the other guy’s name,” chuckles Matt Brennan, the owner of the Suffolk Punch Boxing Club in Ipswich, where Wardley walked through the doors, aged 20, looking to find an outlet for his athletic prowess after injuries dashed his dreams of becoming a soccer player. “The guy got up, and then Fab just finished him off after that.” It laid out the story that has recurred multiple times over recent years, one that often ends with opponents laid out and Wardley making a mockery of popular wisdom. He battled to a draw against Tokyo Olympic bronze medalist
FABIO WARDLEY IS IN THE HABIT OF TEARING UP THE SCRIPT AND SECURING LAST-GASP TRIUMPHS. THE HARD- HITTING ENGLISHMAN IS NOW POISED FOR HIS GREATEST-EVER CHALLENGE – AND WE’VE LEARNED NOT TO WRITE HIM OFF. By Dom Farrell
“I called him back to the corner and said, ‘Fab, what’s going on?’” coach Rob Hodgins recalls. “It was hostile. Fab says, ‘Calm down, I’ve got him.’ Then he dropped him in the first 30 seconds of the round.” But this scene is not from Wardley’s hellacious contests with Frazer Clarke, Justis Huni or Joseph Parker, heavyweight wars from which he has emerged as the newly elevated WBO titleholder. It went down back in 2016, in the fourth and final bout of Wardley’s brief but much discussed career on the white-collar boxing circuit. His opponent was Wayne Bayliss, a 35-year-old boxer in his hometown of Newmarket, England,
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ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS WORMELL
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