{"id":179383,"date":"2025-10-04T21:00:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T21:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/179383\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T21:00:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T21:00:09","slug":"fabio-wardley-plays-down-prospect-of-awkward-showdown-with-stablemate-moses-itauma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/179383\/","title":{"rendered":"Fabio Wardley plays down prospect of awkward showdown with stablemate Moses Itauma"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fabio Wardley<\/a> has ruled out fighting his stablemate and fellow heavyweight contender Moses Itauma<\/a> until there are multiple world titles on the line.
The 30-year-old from Ipswich is the current WBA interim champion by virtue of his dramatic smash-and-grab victory over Justis Huni<\/a> in June.
His reward for that win was a final eliminator against Joseph Parker<\/a> at o2 Arena, London on Oct. 25 with the winner set to move forward to a shot at undisputed heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk<\/a> in 2026.<\/p>\n

Wardley is currently trained by Ben Davison, whose stable also boasts none other than Itauma, perhaps the most exciting 20-year-old on the planet.<\/p>\n

In his last outing, Itauma took out Wardley\u2019s long-time manager Dillian Whyte<\/a> inside two ruthless minutes at ANB Arena, Riyadh to add to his burgeoning reputation as a world heavyweight champion in waiting.<\/p>\n

But as both Wardley (19-0-1, 18 KOs) and Itauma (13-0, 11 KOs) keep winning, the elephant in the gym grows larger. Surely these two heavyweights will have to face each other before too long?<\/p>\n

\u201cNot any time soon I don\u2019t think,\u201d Wardley said during an interview with The Ring<\/a>. \u201cIf we are being honest, I still need to pick up a world title and he still needs to do the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven then, there are still two more belts out there that we need to go and pick up. Then, maybe it\u2019s a question for when everything is cleared up between the pair of us, maybe.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that\u2019s not anytime soon, that\u2019s quite far down the line so it\u2019s not a bone of contention right now.”<\/p>\n

While Wardley, rated at No. 6 by The Ring, can move to the very front of the queue by beating Parker, southpaw Itauma is not far behind him. The Ring’s No. 9-rated heavyweight is at No. 1 with both the WBO and WBA, while the WBC (No. 4) and IBF (No. 5) have him slightly lower.<\/p>\n

On the links between them, Wardley added: \u201cIt\u2019s a positive for me, it\u2019s a positive for him, it\u2019s a positive for Ben and for the gym that we are training alongside each other and that Ben is producing great fighters like this. We are coming through, working our way through the division and picking up wins and world titles. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a massive plus. It\u2019s not something negative to look at. It\u2019s a credit to me and him that people consistently put our names together as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Wardley was less positive about the fact that his showdown with Parker, one of the biggest heavyweight fights on British soil this year, will clash with Boxxer\u2019s first show on the BBC.<\/p>\n

On the same night, up the road in Derby, Frazer Clarke and Jeamie TKV will meet for Wardley\u2019s old British heavyweight title live on BBC Two.<\/p>\n

Although the two main events are not expected to clash directly, Wardley described the decision of Boxxer promoter Ben Shalom to go up against the fight on DAZN as \u2018silly\u2019.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cObvously it\u2019s not ideal as boxers and for the boxing fans and the public it\u2019s a bit annoying when there\u2019s a conflict like that. Boxing fans want to sit down and watch a full show. They want to see it from head to toe. It\u2019s a bit annoying but it is what it is. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to dwell on it or cry about it. I just think it\u2019s a bit of a silly move from Ben and Boxxer to have their first show competing with ours on quite short notice. But that\u2019s up to them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fabio Wardley has ruled out fighting his stablemate and fellow heavyweight contender Moses Itauma until there are multiple…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,6842,6836,6841,6840,6834,6102,6837,6838,6839,6835,6588,6847,6846,6830,6828,6829,6844,6831,6827,6848,6843,101,6845,6826,6833,56,54,55,6832],"class_list":{"0":"post-179383","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-boxing-community","10":"tag-boxing-fights","11":"tag-boxing-history","12":"tag-boxing-interviews","13":"tag-boxing-magazine","14":"tag-boxing-news","15":"tag-boxing-photos","16":"tag-boxing-rankings","17":"tag-boxing-schedule","18":"tag-boxing-videos","19":"tag-boxing-results","20":"tag-disqualification","21":"tag-draw","22":"tag-fight","23":"tag-fighter","24":"tag-fighter-news","25":"tag-knockout","26":"tag-latest-boxing-matches","27":"tag-ring","28":"tag-ring-magazine","29":"tag-split-decision","30":"tag-sports","31":"tag-technical-knockout","32":"tag-the-ring","33":"tag-top-fighters","34":"tag-uk","35":"tag-united-kingdom","36":"tag-unitedkingdom","37":"tag-upcoming-boxing-matches"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}