Fabio Wardley Has Sparred Both Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury, Unsure About Who Wins

On May 18, WBA, IBF and WBO titleholder Oleksandr Usyk and WBC titlist Tyson Fury will finally meet to determine the first undisputed heavyweight champion since Lennox Lewis beat Evander Holyfield back in November 1999.

The winner will have proven himself to be the best of his era, and each has the profile and personality to carry the title even without the need for belts.

Which is handy. Modern boxing politics make it difficult for a fighter to maintain control of an entire division, and the current (and welcome) will to put on the best and most exciting heavyweight fights possible makes it even less likely that either Usyk or Fury would be able to satisfy all of his mandatory commitments.

There are already strong rumors suggesting that the new champion will have just enough time to pose for photographs with his collection of trophies before handing the IBF title over for the winner of Filip Hrgovic-Daniel Dubois.

British and Commonwealth heavyweight champion Fabio Wardley (17-0-1, 16 KOs), appears among the top 15 in each sanctioning body’s rankings and should be ideally placed to launch a title bid of his own over the next 18 months. But the British fighter is as keen as everybody else to see a true heavyweight champion crowned in Riyadh. 

“I’ve sparred both of them,” Wardley told Sky Sports. “It’s unfair, because I’ve sparred Usyk a lot more. I’ve sparred Fury maybe once or twice, but I spent maybe eight weeks in total in Ukraine sparring Usyk, so I’ve been there a while. But it was a long time ago, back when he was fighting Tony Bellew. The other time was when he’d just moved up to heavyweight.

“I’m in a really funny place with it. I’m not really a fence-sitter, but with this one I am. I think they’re both coming off questionable performances.”

Last August, Usyk was slightly under par but still managed to stop Daniel Dubois in nine rounds. In October, Fury had to pick himself up off the floor to scrape past professional boxing novice Francis Ngannou.

“It’s a question of, who has the negative backlash from that performance affected worse – and then who’s made the adjustments?” Wardley said. “I guess if I look at it like that, I would edge it ever so slightly towards Usyk.

“More so just mentality-wise, I think he can be so laser-focused – like a horse with blinkers on. Almost borderline robotic, like, ‘I know the job at hand and I know what I have to do to pull it off. This outside noise and outside chatter is all irrelevant. I’m focused on the job at hand.’

“Whereas Fury is almost the opposite to that. He wants the noise and wants the chatter, and there’s a negative effect that comes along with that. It’s not always positive chatter in your ear. Sometimes it can be negative, and things can go wrong. He’s obviously had the cut from his camp, and that will have messed up his camp. Did he have to stop? Has he been more tentative with his sparring, so is he not as sharp and spicy as he was before? There are question marks all over the place.”