{"id":499383,"date":"2026-02-25T21:41:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T21:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/499383\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T21:41:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T21:41:07","slug":"wardley-vs-dubois-daniel-dubois-refuses-fist-bump-from-world-champion-fabio-wardley-after-face-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/499383\/","title":{"rendered":"Wardley vs Dubois: Daniel Dubois refuses fist bump from world champion Fabio Wardley after face-off"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daniel Dubois refused a fist bump from world champion Fabio Wardley as the pair came face-to-face at a lively news conference in London.<\/a><\/p>\n

The world title fight between two of Britain’s biggest punchers takes place at Manchester’s Co-op Live Arena on 9 May.<\/p>\n

After some long-winded bickering between the two camps, the fighters – relatively restrained until that point – finally sparked into life.<\/p>\n

Wardley said he would “flatten” the challenger. “My power is proven. If there’s time left on the clock, I’m taking you out of the fight,” he added.<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old – with 19 stoppages in 20 wins – will make the first defence of his WBO crown, having claimed the ‘interim’ title against Joseph Parker before being upgraded to full champion when Oleksandr Usyk vacated the belt.<\/p>\n

Former IBF champion Dubois, 28, is coming off a devastating knockout loss to generational great Usyk last summer. <\/p>\n

“If you look back, when it gets dicey, he’s not up for it,” Wardley said of Dubois, who has faced accusations of folding too easily in his three stoppage defeats.<\/p>\n

Wednesday’s news conference took place at Dutch Hall, a converted 16th-century church tucked away in the heart of the city.<\/p>\n

Dubois – never one for lengthy monologues – kept his answers short and matter of fact. <\/p>\n

But the Londoner was clear in his intention. “Victory by knockout, by any means necessary,” he said.<\/p>\n

When the fighters eventually stepped forward for the obligatory face-off, Dubois looked away first as Wardley smirked.<\/p>\n

Moments later Wardley extended his fist in a gesture of respect, but Dubois shook his head and refused to engage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daniel Dubois refused a fist bump from world champion Fabio Wardley as the pair came face-to-face at a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":499384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-499383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}