dethroned Wardley with an 11th-round stoppage<\/a> in a thrilling all-British showdown in Manchester in May to become a two-time world champion.<\/p>\nIt was announced during Saturday’s undercard of Moses Itauma’s IBF heavyweight world title fight with Filip Hrgovic, with Dubois and Wardley facing off in the ring. <\/p>\n
Dubois said he is predicting a “dominant victory” before adding: “Let’s get it on. It’s just a war.<\/p>\n
“When you get in the water, you’re going to get wet. We will see. Give me some of that face-to-face – boy.”<\/p>\n
The first meeting lived up to its billing, with two of the division’s biggest punchers producing a dramatic fight that showcased the power of both men.<\/p>\n
Wardley dropped Dubois twice early in the contest, but a bloodied Wardley absorbed heavy punishment before the referee stopped the bout.<\/p>\n
It was the first defeat of the 31-year-old’s professional career in his 22nd bout.<\/p>\n
“It didn’t take long at all [to agree]. The O2 is like a home away from home for me,” Fabio Wardley said on DAZN.<\/p>\n
“Looking forward to getting straight back into it. Going to be a rematch and going to be revenge.<\/p>\n
“We came into the fight with all the confidence in the world, but adjustments needed to be made.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daniel Dubois will defend his WBO heavyweight world title against former champion Fabio Wardley in a highly anticipated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":873291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-873290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873290","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=873290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/873291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}