Boxing
Usyk’s silence after talking about Wardley KO’s “Fuels Fury” trilogy
Published
12 months agoon
Oleksandr Usyk’s silence since WBA interim heavyweight champion Fabio Wardley won an 11th round knockout over WBO interim champion Joseph Parker on October 25 has been disturbing.
Usyk’s disappearance after Wardley’s victory
Undisputed champion Usyk announced that he would face the winner of the fight. His silence since Wardley’s upset victory over Parker suggests to some that he has no interest in facing him.
Fabio (20-0-1, 19 KO) has a different fighting style than Parker. It has high efficiency and exerts constant pressure. The 38-year-old Usyk (24-0, 15 KO) could not count on winning by knockout over the steel-jawed Wardley on July 19, 2025.
Is Usyk Weighing a legacy or a payday?
If Usyk still holds out hope that Tyson Fury will come out of retirement and face him in a high-paying trilogy fight, it makes sense for him to beat the 30-year-old Wardley. Financially, it makes sense for Usyk to wait for this fight. He would have to vacate the WBO title if he decides to face Fury, as the WBO has already ordered Usyk to face a mandatory next fight. This is Wardley now that he holds the WBO interim belt.
Silence from the master as Wardley waits
“It will be presented to him. He remained deafeningly mute, which is a bit worrying considering he said he would fight the winner,” analyst Gareth A. Davies said in an interview BoxNation that Oleksandr Usyk hasn’t said a word since Fabio Wardley’s upset victory over Joseph Parker on October 25, 2025.
A fight with Wardley would be hard for Usyk. He struggled because he beat Fury and Anthony Joshua twice. None of these players have the engine or beard that Fabio has. Considering a fight with Wardley would make any fighter think twice, especially one who has the lucrative potential of a trilogy fight with Fury.
There was also the factor of 38-year-old Usyk’s age. He’s not adolescent and has already rejected the idea of fighting another younger heavyweight, Moses Itauma. Wardley is obviously not that adolescent, but he is significantly younger than him and 37-year-old Fury and 36-year-old Joshua.
Wardley’s engine and chin raise real questions
“It will be presented to him in terms of commercial feasibility as to whether this fight will actually work, and for that you need a fight in a huge stadium,” Gareth said of the Wardley fight. “And we need Fabio to be in the public domain, otherwise Usyk will say, ‘You know what? I’m going to have to fight 12 difficult rounds with this bastard. He’s going to keep coming. I’m really going to have to fight him. I’m leaving.'”
The fight with Wardley will be very hard for Usyk. Considering how Usyk has fought Fury twice in 2024, it wouldn’t be a huge shock if he lost to Wardley. This is a bad fight for him. If he could count on knocking Wardley out early in the fight like he did against Dubois, fighting him would be worth the risk. However, he does not punch difficult enough to seriously injure a fighter like Wardley, meaning he would be forced to fight 12 robust rounds to defeat him.
“We know Tyson Fury is going after Usyk in the third fight, it has become more and more common [after Wardley’s win]. He’s really on his third fight,” Gareth said.
Last update: 11/02/2025
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Boxing
Sebastian Fundora Wins by Late Stoppage Against Ermal Hadribeaj
Published
5 hours agoon
October 18, 2026
Sebastian Fundora needed almost every second of 12 rounds to stop Ermal Hadribeaj, finishing his stubborn challenger with a left hand after spending much of the fight battling him at close range.
The stoppage came at 2:59 of the final round at The Chelsea at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. Fundora (25-1-1, 17 KOs) retained his WBC junior middleweight title for the fourth time, while Hadribeaj (23-1-1, 8 KOs) suffered his first professional defeat.
This was hard work for a champion who entered as a heavy favorite. Hadribeaj got underneath Fundora’s long arms, crowded him, and landed hard punches, making the early rounds competitive. Fundora followed him too often without creating the space needed to make his reach effective.
A long left briefly buzzed Hadribeaj in the second, but it didn’t persuade him to stay outside. He recovered and went straight back to forcing the fight inside.
Holding became a recurring feature. Referee Thomas Taylor deducted a point from Hadribeaj in the third round, then took another in the 11th as the challenger increasingly tried to prevent Fundora from working.
Between those penalties, Hadribeaj gave the champion plenty to handle. His harder individual shots competed with Fundora’s greater activity, and he continued coming forward even as the body punches accumulated.

Fundora eventually made that close-range fight work for him. Short punches and uppercuts gave him scoring opportunities, while his sustained attack downstairs made Hadribeaj pay for staying within reach.
The later rounds belonged more clearly to the champion. Hadribeaj could still land, but he was being outworked, and his attempts to crowd Fundora increasingly ended in holding rather than effective offense.
Fundora kept punching through the final round before landing the left hand that dropped and stopped Hadribeaj just before the bell. The finish rewarded his persistence, although the difficult early rounds showed how little he had done to keep the challenger at a distance.
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Boxing
Sebastian Fundora vs Ermal Hadribeaj Live Results and Fight Updates
Published
5 hours agoon
October 18, 2026
Sebastian Fundora (25-1-1, 17 KOs) stopped Ermal Hadribeaj (23-1-1, 8 KOs) at 2:59 of the 12th round to retain his WBC junior middleweight title for the fourth time. Hadribeaj made the early rounds competitive by getting low, forcing his way inside and landing hard shots while denying the champion room to use his reach.
Short punches, uppercuts and a sustained body attack helped Fundora take control as he began outworking the challenger at close range. Referee Thomas Taylor deducted points from Hadribeaj for holding in the third and 11th rounds as the challenger increasingly tried to tie up the busier champion.
With just one second remaining, a left hand dropped Hadribeaj and brought the fight to an end after Fundora’s pressure and body punching had worn him down.
Super middleweight Armando Resendiz (17-3, 11 KOs) defeated Koen Mazoudier (16-5-1, 6 KOs) by a 10-round unanimous decision in a hard-fought fight. The judges scored it 98-92, 97-93 and 97-93, giving Resendiz a wider victory than the competitive action suggested.
Mazoudier kept coming forward and throwing, making Resendiz work at close range and enjoying success through the middle rounds. Resendiz answered with the heavier punches, hurting the Australian with right hands and left hooks as the two traded throughout.
A sustained attack in the final round left Mazoudier reeling and close to being stopped, but he survived and continued firing back until the bell. Resendiz earned his first victory since losing to Jaime Munguia, while Mazoudier made him fight for it in his U.S. debut.
Marco Romero (16-0, 14 KOs) stopped Braulio Matias Ferreira (8-4, 3 KOs) in the first round of their scheduled eight-round super middleweight fight. The 20-year-old Romero immediately pressed the attack, digging to the body and landing right hands upstairs at close range.
A right hand and left hook to the body helped set up a sweeping right to the chin that dropped Ferreira hard into the ropes. Ferreira beat the count, but he was in no condition to continue, prompting the referee to stop the fight. Romero gave the veteran little chance to settle, keeping him under attack throughout the brief contest. It was the Kansas prospect’s third consecutive first-round stoppage.
Super middleweight Jaime Enrique Osuna Diaz (12-0, 5 KOs) kept his unbeaten record with an eight-round majority decision over Cristian Cangelosi (13-1-1, 5 KOs). The judges scored the competitive bout 77-75, 77-75 and 76-76 on the Sebastian Fundora–Ermal Hadribeaj undercard.
Osuna applied pressure from the start, using his activity and body punching to make Cangelosi work. His best round came in the fifth, when he hurt Cangelosi twice with straight right hands but crowded his own punches while trying to finish.
Cangelosi fought back and had a strong seventh round, landing a big shot to keep the outcome in doubt heading into the eighth. Neither fighter scored a knockdown, with Osuna’s pressure and cleaner work in key stretches earning him the narrow victory.
Boxing
Tony Bellew Analyzes Daniel Dubois Knockout Victory Over Fabio Wardley in Rematch
Published
11 hours agoon
October 17, 2026
Daniel Dubois sent out a big statement to the rest of the heavyweight division after his knockout win over Fabio Wardley.
The two British heavyweights met at The O2 Arena on Saturday in one of the most anticipated rematches of the year, following on from their epic first battle back in May.
On that occasion, ‘DDD’ had to recover from two early knockdowns to earn the 11th round TKO win to become WBO heavyweight champion, but it was a much more dominant display from Dubois this time around.
The rematch saw ‘DDD’ drop Wardley inside the opening 20 seconds of the bout, before landing even more heavy shots over the next several minutes, forcing the referee to stop the action in the second round as Dubois retained his WBO heavyweight title.
Ahead of the bout, one man that was picking Wardley to cause the upset and be victorious was former WBC cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew, who felt that the Ipswich man was going to get the job done inside six rounds.
Bellew was happy to hold his hands up and admit he was wrong though, as he posted on social media to heap praise on Dubois for his triumph.
Demolition! Well done to Daniel Dubois.. 👏🔥👏
— Tony Bellew (@TonyBellew) October 17, 2026
“Demolition! Well done to Daniel Dubois.”
Following his win, Dubois has already made it clear who he wants to target next, revealing in his post-fight interview that he wants to meet IBF champion Filip Hrgovic in a unification, in what would be a rematch after ‘DDD’ won their first encounter back in June 2024.
Sebastian Fundora Wins by Late Stoppage Against Ermal Hadribeaj
Sebastian Fundora vs Ermal Hadribeaj Live Results and Fight Updates
Tony Bellew Analyzes Daniel Dubois Knockout Victory Over Fabio Wardley in Rematch
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