{"id":544090,"date":"2026-03-16T13:12:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T13:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/544090\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T13:12:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T13:12:14","slug":"i-still-take-it-with-a-pinch-of-salt-fabio-wardley-responds-to-being-mentioned-in-oleksandr-usyks-retirement-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/544090\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I Still Take it With a Pinch of Salt’ Fabio Wardley Responds to Being Mentioned in Oleksandr Usyk\u2019s Retirement Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

WBO heavyweight world champion Fabio Wardley has said that he isn\u2019t banking on getting a fight with Oleksandr Usyk, even if he does successfully defend his title against Daniel Dubois on May 9.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nice to be on the list,\u201d Wardley told IFL TV<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s nice to be in the conversation. I\u2019ve always assumed that I would have been. I still take it with a pinch of salt, because before the [Joseph] Parker fight I was having conversations, and before the Dubois fight I was having conversations with him. So, it\u2019s like, yeah we will see. I\u2019m not banking on it. I\u2019m not going to go, \u2018I\u2019ve done the Dubois fight, it\u2019s Usyk now\u2019 because you never know how this game is going to play out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wardley (20-0-1, 19 KOs) was responding to Usyk\u2019s three-fight retirement plan<\/a> that has snatched the headlines. The Ukrainian superstar had said that once he handles kickboxing legend Rico Verhoeven on May 23, he would like to face the winner of Wardley and Dubois and then move on to a trilogy with Tyson Fury before hanging his gloves up.<\/p>\n

Usyk (24-0, 15 KOs) relinquished the WBO heavyweight title following an order from the governing body to defend the belt against the Ipswich knockout artist, which prompted the WBO to elevate Wardley to world champion.<\/p>\n

Wardley has been in impressive form worthy of a champion. The 31-year-old devastated Frazer Clarke, dislodging his jaw during a first-round stoppage victory in 2024. He followed that up with knockout wins against Justis Huni last June and against Joseph Parker in October.<\/p>\n

It appears Usyk is looking at the possibility of becoming a four-time undisputed champion. The 39-year-old southpaw conquered the cruiserweight division when securing all four belts against Russia\u2019s Murat Gassiev in the final of the World Boxing Super Series in 2018. His first reign as an undisputed heavyweight champion came after defeating Tyson Fury in 2024, and he would then go on to reclaim the IBF title he vacated last year with a spectacular fifth-round stoppage against Dubois.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WBO heavyweight world champion Fabio Wardley has said that he isn\u2019t banking on getting a fight with Oleksandr…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,110098,7704,85],"class_list":["post-544090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-fabio-wardley","tag-oleksandr-usyk","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}