Fabio Wardley (20-0-1, 19 KOs) is scheduled to make the first defence of his WBO heavyweight title against Daniel Dubois (22-3, 21 KOs) in Manchester on May 9. With fight night around the corner, heavyweight Richard Riakporhe might just have a plan of action for Wardley.
Talking No Glove Lost, Riakporhe joined Derek Chisora to advise Wardley to get into his opponent’s mind to destabilize him.
“There’s always gonna be war. There’s war from the get-go. Like I’m talking about from the press conferences, everything. It starts from there. But if you don’t know, you don’t know. But the fighters will know. If Fabio doesn’t say certain things to Daniel, if he doesn’t try to tap into his head, is he missing a trick in, this fight week? 100 percent,” he said. “I feel he can make the fight easier for himself. The art of war, the true art of war, is to win a fight without fighting.”
Dubois is generally pretty reserved during press conferences; he’s not a natural trash-talker, tends to keep answers short, and doesn’t go out of his way to stir things up. When he does show emotion, it’s usually more controlled or tied to proving a point rather than playing mind games. This calm, slightly introverted demeanor often pushed people to read him as either focused or vulnerable, depending on the situation.
Riakporhe basically pointed out that Dubois isn’t someone who thrives on chaotic verbal back-and-forth, so a louder, more confrontational personality, like Wardley’s, could try to disrupt his composure before the fight.
“One thing that I’ve noticed is, he looks like he don’t care and he’s in his own world, in his mind. But one thing that I’ve seen as well from the press, the face-to-face that they did, is that he seems uncomfortable talking. You know, the longer you watch it, you can see it. Everybody’s saying in the comments, the more he has to talk, the more he’s just uncomfortable,” he said.
“He’s Sparred Everybody”
Chisora, on the other hand, was all praise for Wardley’s unshakeable grit. Talking during the same episode, he attributed the same to Wardley’s work ethic and love for sparring,
“I think it comes from when he would spar me and Dillian. He’s sparred everybody to just learn the game and just toughen it out. When we had a big fight, we would call Fabio down for a couple of rounds,” he said. “And guess what, every time he would say ‘yes, what time’, And he was always there, to help others.”
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