Teddy Atlas has been looking forward to the potential world title fight between Fabio Wardley and Oleksandr Usyk.
Wardley once again managed to show his power in victory over Jospeh Parker last weekend. Despite being down on two of the three scorecards going into the 11th round, he landed the shots that mattered and forced the referee to stop the fight with Parker still on his feet but unable to fire back significantly.
The win puts the Ipswich man in pole position for a mandatory shot at the WBO belt held by two-time undisputed ruler Usyk, who also holds the three other major belts.
Speaking on The Fight about a potential match-up, famed trained and analyst Atlas first gave huge praise to the Ukrainian.
“Usyk, doesn’t make mistakes … You win the Olympics, you win the cruiserweight title, consolidate all the items, wipe out the division, you go up to heavyweight as a much smaller man and you beat a big heavyweight champion in his own country and then just to show it wasn’t a fluke you do it again.
“He’s one of the greatest winners we’ve ever seen. His greatest asset of all is he’s a winner. He finds a way to win. I don’t know if magic can beat him. I think he’s got a special shield that blocks magic, He exudes his own magic.”
He then went on to give Wardley a puncher’s chance – something the Brit is well used to hearing by now despite continuing to rack up wins.
“It’d be interesting and a hell of an atmosphere, I’m sure in the UK. And yeah, it’d still be hanging in the air, the same thing – can the eraser show itself at any time? And the answer is yeah it can and that’s what people will be there to see.”
Pre-fight, Usyk’s team said that the winner of Parker-Wardley was indeed the frontrunner for his next fight, hinting that he would not be keen on dropping the belt to skip the mandatory challenge.
