{"id":380249,"date":"2026-01-20T12:14:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T12:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/380249\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T12:14:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T12:14:16","slug":"duke-mckenzie-sees-only-one-winner-in-fabio-wardley-vs-derek-chisora-he-wont-beat-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/380249\/","title":{"rendered":"Duke McKenzie sees only one winner in Fabio Wardley vs Derek Chisora: “He won’t beat him”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former three-weight world champion Duke McKenzie believes a mooted matchup between Fabio Wardley<\/a> and Derek Chisora<\/a> can only end in one-sided fashion.<\/p>\n

Chisora has emerged as one of the leading candidates to face Wardley, the newly-crowned WBO heavyweight champion, who gained his belt towards the end of last year.<\/p>\n

This came about after Oleksandr Usyk, the bona fide heavyweight king, vacated the WBO world title instead of fulfilling his mandatory obligation.<\/p>\n

As a result, Wardley, who claimed the interim belt with an 11th round stoppage of Joseph Parker in October<\/a>, was swiftly elevated to full WBO champion.<\/p>\n

Prior to that, the Ipswich man clinched victory from the jaws of defeat against Justis Huni<\/a>, landing a crushing 10th round right hand to halt proceedings in stunning fashion.<\/p>\n

This performance followed a far more devastating spectacle when, in October 2024, Wardley engineered a brutal first-round finish in his rematch with Frazer Clarke.<\/p>\n

So now, with the 31-year-old having amassed a string of emphatic stoppages, many are questioning whether heavyweight veteran Chisora is a viable opponent for his maiden title defence.<\/p>\n

The 42-year-old has claimed points victories over Otto Wallin, Joe Joyce and Gerald Washington since his punishing 10th round stoppage defeat to Tyson Fury in 2022.<\/p>\n

But still, as he looks to secure his 50th professional outing, many believe that Chisora would be making a mistake by facing Wardley.<\/p>\n

One man who shares this view is British boxing legend McKenzie, who told Boxing Social<\/a> that the Londoner is simply \u2018not going to beat\u2019 Wardley.<\/p>\n

\u201cDerek Chisora\u2019s made it no secret he wants his last fight to be for the heavyweight championship of the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn that respect, it\u2019s quite romantic for Derek \u2013 he\u2019s going to get his wish. [But] he\u2019s not going to beat Fabio Wardley.<\/p>\n

\u201cFabio Wardley, right now, they should make him president of the \u2018Who Needs Him Club\u2019. Nobody needs Fabio; he\u2019s a menace for anybody.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you win the world title, you get an extra air of confidence. Fabio was confident before he won the world title. I can imagine what he\u2019s going to be like now.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Wardley\u2019s first WBO title defence is yet to be confirmed, a fight against Chisora does appear to be a likely option.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former three-weight world champion Duke McKenzie believes a mooted matchup between Fabio Wardley and Derek Chisora can only…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-380249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380249","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=380249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}