{"id":524662,"date":"2026-03-09T14:17:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T14:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/524662\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T14:17:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T14:17:07","slug":"fabio-wardley-sums-up-oleksandr-usyk-choosing-verhoeven-over-undisputed-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/524662\/","title":{"rendered":"Fabio Wardley sums up Oleksandr Usyk choosing Verhoeven over undisputed fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fabio Wardley had hoped to face Oleksandr Usyk in 2026, but Ukraine\u2019s unified heavyweight ruler has instead proceeded with a left-field fight with Dutch kickboxer, Rico Verhoeven.<\/p>\n

After knocking out Joseph Parker to get his hands on the WBO Interim heavyweight title<\/a>, Wardley called for a showdown with Usyk, hoping to secure a shot at the coveted undisputed throne.<\/p>\n

However, Usyk responded by vacating the WBO world title \u2013 with Wardley being elevated to world champion as a result \u2013 and was linked to a return to fighting across the pond in possible meetings against either Deontay Wilder or Andy Ruiz Jr.<\/p>\n

Two weeks ago, it was instead announced that Usyk will head to Cairo, Egypt, to defend his WBC heavyweight world title against Verhoeven \u2013 who boasts a professional boxing record of just 1-0<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Boxing News, Wardley admitted that he found the news \u2018underwhelming\u2019, declaring that he hopes Usyk will soon return to \u2018actual\u2019 professional boxing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it [my reaction] was the same as the rest of the boxing world, it [the announcement] was quite underwhelming. I understand that he has earned the right to do what he wants but I at least expected it to be [against] an active boxer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t actually know much about Verhoeven in terms of what his quality level is, but I expected it [the fight] to be against a decent calibre professional boxer, but if it\u2019s not, fine, do your thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully he returns to actual professional boxing, against some of the top elites.\u201d<\/p>\n

Usyk-Verhoeven will take place at the Pyramids of Giza on Saturday, May 23, as Verhoeven has the chance to become the fastest heavyweight world champion in boxing history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fabio Wardley had hoped to face Oleksandr Usyk in 2026, but Ukraine\u2019s unified heavyweight ruler has instead proceeded…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524663,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-524662","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\/524662","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=524662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}