Saturday Night Boxing: Opinions and Observations: Wardley-Dubois

Where to even begin?

Wardley-Dubois will be remembered for generations. It was one of those epic heavyweight clashes that was a testament to the sport at its finest. This was two power punchers giving no quarter.

Wardley drops Dubois two times in the first three rounds, but Dubois is undeterred. Dubois punishes and pulverizes Wardley throughout the rest of the bout, but Wardley doesn't go down swinging; no, he refuses to go down. When the referee mercifully stops the fight in the 11th, Dubois regains a portion of the heavyweight title but has to walk through fire to get there. Now, Dubois can finally silence his critics. There can be no more questions about his guts or makeup.

By the start of the ninth round, Wardley's face was a mess. He had a cut over his left eye, his nose was busted and his right eye was almost completely closed. The ringside physician checked Wardley's eye and nose. Many fights had been stopped for far less. But the doctor let the match continue.

Dubois hit the canvas twice in the fight
Photo courtesy of Queensberry Promotions

Yet Wardley starts the ninth landing jabs, hard uppercuts and those piercing right hands that sent Dubois down in the first and third rounds. Here was Wardley's moment, why his trainer Ben Davison refused to pull the plug on the fight. His fighter had turned the tide in recent fights against Justis Huni and Jospeh Parker. Could he pull one more rabbit out of his hat?

He could not. Dubois has faced criticism throughout his career for taking knees, not getting up from knockdowns, and not persevering past injuries, but in this fight he didn't let Wardley's big punches get the best of him. Similar to the end of the seventh when Wardley had an impressive power-punching sequence, Dubois took everything in the ninth yet was undaunted. He would continue to bludgeon Wardley with his sledgehammer right hands and thudding jabs.

Ultimately, referee Howard Foster stopped the bout in the beginning of the 11th round. Davison has been taking a lot of criticism for failing to protect his fighter (after the fight he posted that he agreed with the stoppage), but from where I sit, his reluctance to stop the fight was understandable.

In truth this was a hard decision to make. Although Wardley was running on fumes and taking an enormous beating, he continued to throw shots with real menace. He didn't just land in the seventh and ninth rounds, he connected with the types of knockout blows that had led to 19 stoppages in his previous 21 fights. It's just that Dubois was able to take them. No one will ever question Wardley's heart after Saturday's matchup; he refused to go down. But it was Dubois' engine, technique, and thunder that wound up being the ultimate separators.

Although Dubois did display other punches at points in the fight, he chiefly prevailed with his jab and straight right hand. After adjusting to Wardley's wide right hands, he was able to beat Wardley to the punch throughout the fight. Of all the things that impressed me the most with Dubois in the match, his counter jab was number one on my list. While Wardley would telegraph the looping right, Dubois would get there first with the counter jab, which landed like a power punch and is the main reason Wardley's right eye closed.

And there were other points where Wardley would initiate with a right hand, but Dubois would beat him with his own right. Dubois' economy of movement and superior technique resulted in winning exchanges all fight. Dubois was also masterful as a lead. Again, mostly with two punches, he imposed significant damage on Wardley.

In theory Wardley's wide punching, with rear hooks that can be unpredictable and tough to track, should have posed a big threat to Dubois, and they did. But to Dubois' credit, defensively he was good enough to avoid most of them. There were countless sequences where Wardley wound up swinging at air. Dubois will never be known for his defense, but it was a crucial factor in the fight.

Dubois pasting Wardley with a power shot
Photo courtesy of Queensberry Promotions

As for Wardley, the man from white-collar boxing who somehow became a heavyweight titleholder, he finally met his match. The dream ride has now been derailed. On another night he could have won this. Maybe he should have pressed Dubois more in the third round for the stoppage. Perhaps he thought that he would have more opportunities later in the fight.

But now his future looks a lot different in the sport. He took a hellacious beating on Saturday, the type that could change the trajectory of a life, let alone a career. Although his skill deficiency was well known prior to facing Dubois, his punching had always been able to carry the day. But he took too many hard shots on Saturday. His defense wasn't good enough. His movement was ponderous and often counterproductive for both offensive and defensive purposes. And he showed that when the chips were down that he didn't believe enough in his punch arsenal to rely on much beside his right-hand haymakers.

If Wardley does decide to return, he will need to rethink several aspects of his ring style. He no longer can believe that boxing is essentially a tough man contest but with different rules. A referee can stop a fight, so can a physician or a corner. His defense will have to get better. He will need to learn more evasion tactics. He also must do more with his left hand.

But if he does call it a day, or even if he never returns to the top end of the heavyweight division, he has already provided a career full of memories. In fact, his story is so unbelievable that Hollywood studio executives would toss a similar, made-up pitch. Whoever would believe that a random guy with little training, fighting in his spare time for a few bucks, would go on to beat Olympians and win a world title?

Dubois now has a record of 23-3 with 22 knockouts. He's amassed stoppage wins over Wardley, Hrgovic, Joshua and Miller. He's also been stopped three times, twice by waving his own white flag. But the record doesn't tell the whole story. In this fight and against Kevin Lerena, he was hurt badly in the first round by temple shots, where he had to take a knee to recover. And yet there were other fights, like against Hrgovic and Joshua, where he took enormous right hands without ever hitting the canvas. Dubois lost to Joyce when his eye blew up from jabs and was also wiped out by Usyk's "Ivan" punch, that left hand which isn't exactly a straight shot or a hook.

All of this is a roundabout way of saying it's still tough to figure out exactly what Dubois is and isn't. We know that he's one of the hardest punchers in the sport. We also know that he's susceptible to those with craft. Despite being on the world boxing stage for many years, he's still much of an enigma. We just don't know what we're going to get each fight. But it's been a riveting watch.

Win or lose, Dubois has been terrific value in the sport. His attritional war against Miller opened eyes regarding his internal fortitude. He won the battle of concussive punchers against Joshua. He was getting beaten to a pulp in the first two rounds against Hrgovic yet turned the tide. He was wiped out by Usyk so conclusively in their rematch that it's amazing he was able to make it back to the world level and win another heavyweight title belt. This is an atypical fighter with reservoirs of internal strength that have been missed by much of the public.

Dubois is still just 28 and he should have at least another half-a-decade of this thrill ride. His trajectory could wind up anywhere. He encapsulates the current heavyweight division outside of Usyk. He could beat almost anyone, but he's never far from peril. He's played a key role in a thrilling decade of heavyweight fights and somehow, he's only mid-journey.

Dubois's career has been unusual, filled with setbacks, unexpected victories, moments of grandeur, and nothing short of drama. He's a fighter that has achieved so much and yet his future still seems so unsettled. But that gap, that unknown quality both in and out of the ring, reels us in. He's a puzzle. A puzzle we want to solve. And we are still far away from having all the pieces in place.