Daniel Dubois produces spectacular comeback to defeat Fabio Wardley and claim WBO title

Daniel Dubois emphatically answered questions about his mental resilience by twice rising from the canvas to claim the WBO heavyweight title with an 11th-round stoppage of Fabio Wardley .

Knocked down after 10 seconds by the first punch Wardley landed in the maiden defence of his crown, panic spread across the face of Dubois, who was then dropped again in the third round in Manchester.

However, he weathered the early onslaught and started to land some punishing shots of his own, showing his boxing acumen and establishing control to leave the wilder Wardley’s face bloodied and battered.

Wardley gamely hung on in a slugfest for the ages and despite remaining upright throughout, he was put out of his misery when the referee stepped in at the start of the penultimate round.

While Dubois (now 23-3, 22KOs) became a three-time world champion and halted Wardley’s fairytale run from white-collar boxer to WBO title holder, he quietened his critics who have questioned his spirit.

He faced accusations of “quitting” in losing to Joe Joyce in 2020 while he has presented a pensive figure this week, walking out of two interviews as he looked to get back into the win column after losing his IBF title 11 months ago.

A second defeat to heavyweight kingpin Oleksandr Usyk at Wembley Stadium was followed by footage emerging of Dubois hosting a party at his house just hours before being taken out in the fifth round.

His trainer Don Charles, who Dubois fired and rehired since then, promised there would be no repeat of a pre-fight “gathering” after his charge was granted an immediate shot at winning another world title.

However, he arrived to the arena an hour later than Wardley because of traffic, with the area busier than normal because of Manchester City playing at the nearby Etihad Stadium in a teatime kick-off.

And he was sluggish out of the traps when the action began in the seventh all-British world heavyweight title fight, with a headliner titled ‘Don’t Blink’ living up to the billing when Dubois was put on the seat of his pants by a glancing blow to the back of his head.

It was a flash knockdown and Dubois looked to be warming to his task with the crisper, cleaner shots for the rest of the round and into the second when he took a knee from another overhand right in the third.

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Wardley, whose off-the-cuff remark that his rival would be a bin man if he were not a boxer lit a fire under Dubois, looked for the finishing blow, but he was rushing his shots and missing conclusively.

The fighters had a combined knockout ratio of 95 per cent but Dubois starting to spear in the jab in the middle rounds offset his opponent’s rhythm on several occasions, knocking him off-balance.

By the halfway point, Wardley was slowing down and his nose was gushing blood, while in the seventh round, his right eye was starting to swell from the sustained barrage from the 28-year-old Dubois.

Cheered on by a vocal crowd, Wardley continued to plough forward in the eighth but he was sent reeling back to the ropes again while an uppercut from Dubois momentarily buzzed the Ipswich fighter.

After his nose was inspected ahead of the ninth by the ringside doctor, Wardley seemed to go for broke, but his punches lacked their earlier sting.

Dubois countered with savage overhand rights of his own in a barnstorming back-and-forth round.

Wardley had pulled the iron out of the fire in the championship rounds to upset Justis Huni and Joseph Parker in the last 12 months, but that only ever looked to be a faint hope at the Co-op Arena.

He looked to be out on his feet when another brutal right hand found its target, prompting official Howard Foster, whose shirt was dripping in blood, to step in, leaving Dubois to celebrate as 31-year-old Wardley (now 21-1-1, 19KOs) sank forlornly to his knees.