Why Dubois vs. Wardley 2 is a better all-British heavyweight boxing battle than Fury vs. Joshua superfight

The promotional fight poster for Tyson Fury vs. Anthony Joshua in Cardiff on December 11 says it all.

"Finally."

Much promotional wrangling, most prominently featuring Eddie Hearn and Dana White's occasionally entertaining and often tedious back-and-forth, centered on the fight taking place in the UK.

Whatever the various motivations, Hearn's focus on getting the fight on British soil was laudable. Fans in Fury and Joshua's homeland have waited maddeningly long enough for this spectacle.

And it certainly will be a spectacle, perhaps one of the last truly great crossover boxing events in the country, now that the sport generally resides away from the mainstream, in the shadow of Premier League soccer like all others.

It will be a truly significant moment in a nation's collective sporting consciousness, given both Fury and Joshua have gargantuan public profiles to match their dimensions. 

Daniel Dubois and Fabio Wardley, by contrast, could probably walk a decent distance down a few high streets without being recognised. But on Saturday night, WBO heavyweight champion Dubois will face Wardley in an instant rematch of their instant classic from May this year. In purely sporting terms, it's the best all-British heavyweight fight of 2026.

MORE: Fury and Joshua are best of enemies in friendly London launch

What happened in Dubois vs. Wardley 1?

Wardley came into the ring as the WBO heavyweight champion for the first time. He won the organisation's interim belt with a thrilling 11th-round win over Joseph Parker in October 2025 and was upgraded to full champion status after Oleksandr Usyk vacated his title.

Dubois was back in action after his second career loss to Ukrainian great Usyk, who stopped him inside five masterful rounds at Wembley, sparking fresh questions over the Englishman's durability as an elite-level heavyweight.

Such queries looked entirely valid when, within 10 seconds of the opening bell, Wardley clipped Dubois on the top of the head with a winging right hook and put Dubois on the seat of his shorts. The challenger regrouped well to take the second but was forced to the canvas once again in the third.

Queensberry, Leigh Dawney

From that point, Wardley's confidence and eagerness to add to a career record of 19 KOs in 20 wins proved to be his undoing. His attacks were rudimentary and predictable as he looked for the finishing shot; Dubois got some bounce into his footwork and began landing heavy artillery at will off his ramrod jab. 

By the midway point, Wardley's nose was a bloodied mess and, although he frequently enjoyed success in the face of the onslaught, Dubois had opened up a commanding lead by the time referee Howard Foster stepped in to spare a battered and bedraggled Wardley in round 11.

"I made the call [to ask for the rematch] within two or three days, once my other eye opened and I could see all the buttons on the phone," Wardley joked in an interview with "="" href="https://

Why Dubois vs. Wardley 2 is a better fight than Fury vs. Joshua

It comes down to a matter of timing and sporting peaks. When Dubois fights for the first time as a two-time world champion at the weekend, he will be 29. Wardley is a little older at 31. Joshua turned 37 this week and will tangle with a 38-year-old Fury before the end of this year.

There are a few tantalising what-ifs and near misses over the course of Joshua and Fury's rivalry at a distance, but if we wind back the clock to when they were around the age Dubois and Wardley are now, we arrive in the first half of 2019.

In December 2018, Fury had completed his against-the-odds return to the top level when he shared a gripping draw with then WBC champion Deontay Wilder. He was an undefeated fighter then, just like Joshua, who had come through some heavy weather to impressively stop Alexander Povetkin at Wembley in September 2018.

Joshua held the IBF, WBA and WBO belts, all formerly held by Fury. A meeting at that point would have come in their career primes, their reputations riding high. In June 2019, Joshua was stunned by Andy Ruiz and had a title to regain. He did so in style that December, but the Fury fight was put to one side, leaving the Gypsy King to focus on his rivalry with Wilder.

Whatever happens on December 11 in terms of bragging rights, it will be almost impossible to call a win for either man their best-ever victory. Both have contrasting but similarly magnificent wins over Wladimir Klitschko at the top of their respective bodies of work, while Fury's jaw-dropping willingness to wade into the Wilder fire and dominate the American knockout artist in their second and third fights was remarkable.

Joshua has more to gain reputationally, going in as the underdog, but would beating an older and faded Fury necessarily require him to be better than he was on his last visit to the Principality Stadium in a 2018 unification clash with Parker, or in the successes at Povetkin's or Ruiz's expense? Will either Fury or Joshua be more impressive than they were in points defeats to Usyk?

Fury himself described the fight as a "cherry on the cake" of two fine careers. To extend the metaphor, Dubois and Wardley are still in the heat of the kitchen, and it remains to be seen what they pull out of the oven. 

Queensberry, Leigh Dawney

Dubois was an esteemed amateur who turned professional instead of sticking with the Team GB setup to target the Tokyo Olympics. He blazed a familiar trail for a hammer-fisted heavyweight prospect before running into the educated jab and ring smarts of Joe Joyce in November 2020. Dubois suffered a fractured eye socket and did not rise from taking a knee in the 10th.

A run of four consecutive wins after the Joyce loss secured a shot at Usyk as the IBF mandatory. Dubois was roundly beaten, the end coming in the ninth, although there was a measure of controversy in the fifth round when he hit Usyk with an uppercut adjudged to have landed low and the champion was given time to recover.

Dubois's run in between his Usyk defeats was sensational as he disposed of Jarrell Miller and current IBF champion Filip Hrgovic, before decking Joshua four times in a five-round demolition at Wembley in September 2024.

A month later, Wardley confirmed his place at the top of the British domestic scene when he scored a sickening first-round KO of Frazer Clarke, the man who won bronze for Great Britain in Tokyo at super heavyweight.

That followed a hellacious 12-round draw with Clarke and a dominant stoppage triumph over the big-punching David Adelaye. Those accomplishments were far more than was expected of Wardley when he turned professional despite having no formal amateur experience. The Ipswich man honed his initial thirst for pugilism on the white-collar boxing scene while holding down an office job.

Wardley and his coaching team, led by Joshua's much-discussed current cornerman Ben Davison, simply powered on. He was way down on the cards at Ipswich Town's Portman Road stadium when he iced Justis Huni with a chilling one-punch KO. He then went back and forth with Parker, outlashing the New Zealander in the penultimate round.

Such heroics were beyond him against the formidable Dubois, who will rightly have eyes on becoming the defining heavyweight of the post-Fury, Joshua, Usyk and Wilder generation. He and Wardley are in their fighting prime and right in the meat and gristle of their legacy-making.

Fury vs. Joshua is the boxing event of 2026, no question. But Dubois vs. Wardley 2 is the heavyweight fight of the year. You'd be crazy to miss it.