It’s a battle of British bruisers as Fabio Wardley defends his WBO heavyweight title against former WBA and IBF champion Daniel Dubois this Sat. night (May 9, 2026) at Co-op Live Arena in Manchester. Both combatants will take place in today’s open workouts, streaming LIVE at 12 p.m. ET in the embedded video above.
Wardley (20-0-1) won the interim strap in Oct. 2025 with a technical knockout win over Joseph Parker (see it again here). He was later elevated to undisputed champion after Oleksandr Usyk
relinquished the title just one month later (full details here).
As for Dubois, he coughed up his IBF title to the aforementioned Usyk back in July 2025, which was his second defeat to the undefeated Ukrainian (video here). Prior to that crushing defeat, Dubois secured a stunning stoppage win over fellow Brit Anthony Joshua.
“It might come down to who lands first,” famed boxing trainer Teddy Atlas said on YouTube. “Both guys are big punchers and the punch that they deliver with the most frequency and knockout power is the right hand. They both get hit with right hands. They both have been caught with right hands, so both of them are susceptible to the other guy’s forte, to the other guy’s strength. That edge has to go, right now, to Wardley. He just won a heavyweight title, he is undefeated and Dubois is coming off a knockout loss to Usyk.”
To see who else is boxing this weekend in Manchester check out the finalized “Wardley vs. Dubois” lineup here.
