There has been plenty of debate over the timing of the stoppage during Daniel Dubois‘s knockout victory over Fabio Wardley, and now former champion Tony Bellew has had his say.
Wardley, who famously has no amateur background, having started out on the white collar circuit, began the first defence of his WBO title well. He knocked ‘DDD’ down twice inside the first three rounds, but then went looking for the same overhand right and continually missed across the rest of the fight.
In the meantime, former IBF ruler Dubois showed his class and began to land his own heavy shots on Wardley, slowly breaking him down as the fight went on. Wardley’s face became a bloodied mess, and eventually the referee was forced to stop the fight at the start of the 11th round.
Speaking to Fight Your Corner, Bellew first had praise for both fighters before explaining why he thinks the referee was right to allow the fight to go as long as it did.
“How brave Daniel was, and how brave Fabio was. That was my initial reaction to the fight being stopped. I’m not like many others. I don’t think it should have been stopped earlier. I think the referee did a brilliant job, and I don’t think his corner should have thrown in the towel earlier.
“The simple reason is that Fabio Wardley has shown on numerous occasions now, you can never rule him out of a fight, even when he’s miles behind, even when he’s been hurt in a fight, he can pull it out of the bag at any moment, and that alone is the reason why he should have been allowed to continue.”
Many have disagreed, and even Wardley’s own trainer Ben Davison has admitted had the towel ready to throw in but missed one key moment when Wardley stumbled back to his own corner at the start of the 10th round.
