{"id":47453,"date":"2026-02-25T18:27:52","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T18:27:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wardley-vs-dubois-daniel-dubois-refuses-fist-bump-from-world-champion-fabio-wardley-after-face-off\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T18:27:52","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T18:27:52","slug":"wardley-vs-dubois-daniel-dubois-refuses-fist-bump-from-world-champion-fabio-wardley-after-face-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wardley-vs-dubois-daniel-dubois-refuses-fist-bump-from-world-champion-fabio-wardley-after-face-off\/","title":{"rendered":"Wardley vs Dubois: Daniel Dubois refuses fist bump from world champion Fabio Wardley after face-off"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Daniel Dubois refused a fist bump from world champion Fabio Wardley as the pair came face-to-face at a <\/b>lively news conference in London.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

The world title fight between two of Britain’s biggest punchers takes place at Manchester’s Co-op Live Arena on 9 May.<\/p>\n

After some long-winded bickering between the two camps, the fighters – relatively restrained until that point – finally sparked into life.<\/p>\n

Wardley said he would “flatten” the challenger. “My power is proven. If there’s time left on the clock, I’m taking you out of the fight,” he added.<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old – with 19 stoppages in 20 wins – will make the first defence of his WBO crown, having claimed the ‘interim’ title against Joseph Parker before being upgraded to full champion when Oleksandr Usyk vacated the belt.<\/p>\n

Former IBF champion Dubois, 28, is coming off a devastating knockout loss to generational great Usyk last summer. <\/p>\n

“If you look back, when it gets dicey, he’s not up for it,” Wardley said of Dubois, who has faced accusations of folding too easily in his three stoppage defeats.<\/p>\n

Wednesday’s news conference took place at Dutch Hall, a converted 16th-century church tucked away in the heart of the city.<\/p>\n

Dubois – never one for lengthy monologues – kept his answers short and matter of fact. <\/p>\n

But the Londoner was clear in his intention. “Victory by knockout, by any means necessary,” he said.<\/p>\n

When the fighters eventually stepped forward for the obligatory face-off, Dubois looked away first as Wardley smirked.<\/p>\n

Moments later Wardley extended his fist in a gesture of respect, but Dubois shook his head and refused to engage.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Daniel Dubois refused a fist bump from world champion Fabio Wardley as the pair came face-to-face at a lively news conference in London. The world title fight between two of Britain’s biggest punchers takes place at Manchester’s Co-op Live Arena on 9 May. After some long-winded bickering between the two camps, the fighters – relatively […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[9224,1357,5422,5423,13902,10457,11601,1417,13901,510],"class_list":["post-47453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-england","tag-bump","tag-champion","tag-daniel","tag-dubois","tag-fabio","tag-faceoff","tag-fist","tag-refuses","tag-wardley","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47453"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47455,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47453\/revisions\/47455"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}