Fabio Wardley Vows to Support Ben Davison After Itauma's Defeat

Fabio Wardley has stepped into the line of fire for his coach, Ben Davison, vowing to carry the gym on his back after the storm that followed Moses Itauma’s failed world-title bid.

Itauma, 21, looked on the brink of history at London’s O2 Arena, bossing Filip Hrgovic for eight rounds before the pace and pressure swallowed him whole. By the ninth, the young heavyweight’s legs were heavy, his punches ragged, his chest heaving. The corner saw enough and threw in the towel.

The fallout was instant and vicious. Itauma had admitted before the fight that he had never completed 12 rounds in sparring. Once Hrgovic had his hand raised, that detail became a stick to beat the camp with, as critics lined up to question Davison’s methods and the gym’s approach to conditioning and fight management.

Wardley, who knows all about emptying the tank too early on a big night, has had enough of it.

‘Delusional’ criticism

The Ipswich heavyweight lost his WBO title to Daniel Dubois after a similar pattern: fast start, heavy dominance, then the slow, painful unraveling late on. He was eventually stopped in the 11th, and will face Dubois again on 17 October in a rematch loaded with personal and professional stakes.

This time, Wardley wants to do more than reclaim a belt. He wants to vindicate his corner.

“I do feel like it’s my turn,” he said, backing Itauma to come again and reach the summit in time. “It’s my turn to do my bit for the gym. It's my turn to prove because I’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of criticism he's [Davison] received and just almost in shock of just like, I don't know another trainer in British boxing that gets so much stick after a loss.

“I find it bemusing, like it's delusional to me. If anything, that's added a bit of fuel to me to be like, ‘Alright, fine, no worries – I'll show you what us, the team, Ben Davison, what we can all do. I'll prove it to you. I'll take that on my shoulders. I'll wear that, no problem’.”

The contrast between the two nights is stark. Itauma’s corner pulled him out once the tide turned and the energy vanished. Wardley, in his first fight with Dubois, absorbed heavy punishment before the referee finally waved it off in the 11th. Same trainer, same gym, two very different endings – and Wardley insists both were handled exactly as they should have been.

“The people in my corner aren't new,” he said. “Like Daniel and Don [Charles, Dubois’s trainer], for example. I'm not flicking from coach to coach to coach to coach to people who don’t know me. One, I’ve had Robert Hodgins, who’s been my coach since I started. And I mean that from since I first ever put on a pair of gloves. I trust that man with my life.

“Same with Ben Davison. He's been with me for five, six, maybe coming up to seven years. I trust that man as well. So, these aren’t new people.

“These aren’t fresh people that are inexperienced or don’t know me. They’ve seen me at hard spas. They’ve seen me through hard fights and hard moments and hard occasions. They know my durability and what I can go through and how I can come out on the other side.”

Promoter’s warning shot

While Wardley circles the wagons, Queensberry promoter Frank Warren struck a more measured tone. He defended Davison’s record but made it clear that Itauma’s defeat will prompt serious conversations behind closed doors.

Davison’s profile, Warren argued, is part of the problem. He’s been in high-profile corners, on high-profile nights. That visibility brings praise when it goes right and a magnifying glass when it doesn’t.

“Regarding Ben, we will have a chat,” Warren said. “There’s certain things that I’ve seen in the fight and seen on the night that obviously have got to be dealt with.

“You have to manage a fight. All he’d done, he got in the ring, he just went and put his foot down on the accelerator and pushed it in overdrive and never took it off.

“He never went out; he never sort of went back to the jab, moved around, just took it easy, calmed down. If he’d have just boxed – what was he, eight rounds up on all the cards? All he had to do was box.”

That is the sting in this defeat. Itauma wasn’t outclassed; he was outlasted. He had the fight where he wanted it, on the cards and in the ring, then burned through his reserves chasing a statement rather than a steady finish.

Now the narrative swings towards Wardley. At 31, with a rematch date set and a point to prove, he has offered himself up as the standard-bearer for a camp under siege. The criticism has been loud. His response will come on 17 October, under the lights, when there is nowhere left to hide and only one way to answer the question hanging over Ben Davison’s gym.