Moderately than engage with the calls, Wardley pointed to the pace of Itauma’s rise and the tendency for fans to maneuver too quickly with young fighters.
“We as boxing fans, we like to get carried away with a story or an individual, someone so young doing a lot,” said Wardley to The Stomping Ground about fans pushing for him to fight Itauma at once. “Early doors, it’s a bit like, ‘let’s slow it down.’”
It’s a sensible play by Wardley to maintain the main focus where it belongs. While Moses Itauma is clearly the shiny recent object of the heavyweight division, looking past Daniel Dubois on May ninth can be a large mistake.
Wardley is correct concerning the fans and media getting ahead of themselves. We see a young knockout artist and immediately need to see them in with the elite, but there’s an actual risk of burning out a prospect before they’ve even peaked. Itauma is simply 21, and as Wardley noted, the “validation” needs to come back naturally through rounds and experience, not only hype.
If Wardley doesn’t get past Dubois on the Co-Op Live, his preferences regarding Itauma turn into secondary. A loss to Dubois would likely push Wardley back right into a position where he might really want a fight against a surging name like Itauma to reclaim his standing.
Each Wardley and Itauma are trained by Ben Davison and fight under Frank Warren’s Queensberry banner. Wardley has been very vocal that training “side-by-side” in the identical gym makes a matchup nearly not possible in the meanwhile. It creates a clumsy dynamic where their trainer would need to select a side or step away entirely, which neither fighter seems desperate to force.
Wardley is targeted on the most important names in the game, Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua, and Oleksandr Usyk. From his perspective, Moses Itauma is a 21-year-old “prospect” (albeit a terrifying one).
While the boxing world is high on Itauma after his Fifth-round destruction of Jermaine Franklin, Wardley feels he has already paid his dues by beating Joseph Parker and Justis Huni. He doesn’t see the good thing about putting his belt on the road against a young powerhouse from his own gym when he could possibly be chasing undisputed status.
Wardley has suggested a particular condition for the Itauma fight: Unification. He recently noted that they need to each exit, collect world titles, after which meet when the stakes are at their absolute peak.
“Perhaps once I’ve got two and he’s got two, then perhaps we want to have a serious conversation about it,” Fabio said about Itauma.
Wardley cannot afford to take a look at Itauma because he has a large problem in front of him on May ninth. Dubois is a heavy-handed, elite heavyweight who just got here off a war with Anthony Joshua. If Wardley loses that fight on the Co-Op Live, his “WBO Champion” leverage disappears, and the WBO might just order Itauma (their #1 contender) to fight for the title against whoever wins.
It’s a mix of gym loyalty and Wardley protecting his hard-earned seat at the highest table. He wants Itauma to “grow up” into the role so the fight makes more financial and historical sense down the road.
