Fabio Wardley Defends Coach Ben Davison After Itauma's Defeat
Fabio Wardley has stepped into the line of fire to defend coach Ben Davison, turning the backlash from Moses Itauma’s defeat into a personal mission.
Itauma, 21, saw his bid to become the second-youngest world heavyweight champion unravel at London’s O2 Arena on Saturday night. After eight dominant rounds against Filip Hrgovic, the young southpaw emptied the tank, visibly drained in the ninth before his corner intervened and threw in the towel.
The manner of the collapse lit up the sport’s fault lines. Itauma had admitted before the fight that he had never gone 12 rounds in sparring. When the finish came, many pointed straight at the gym, straight at Davison, and straight at the preparation. The noise was immediate and unforgiving.
Wardley has heard every word of it. And he’s had enough.
“It’s my turn to do my bit for the gym,” the Ipswich heavyweight said, making it clear he expects Itauma to come again and still become a world champion. “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.”
Those comments come from a fighter who knows the feeling of watching a fight slip away late. Wardley lost his unbeaten record and his WBO title to Daniel Dubois after a punishing, seesaw war in March, a bout he controlled early before fading and being stopped in the 11th.
The parallels with Itauma’s defeat were obvious. The reaction, he feels, has not been.
If anything, the storm around Davison has hardened Wardley’s resolve.
“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’.”
“I trust that man with my life”
One of the key accusations thrown at Davison after Itauma–Hrgovic was corner management: when to push, when to pull a fighter back, when to save them from themselves. Wardley, who absorbed heavy punishment from Dubois before the referee finally stepped in, has no doubts about how his own corner handled that crisis.
He calls it “perfect”.
“I'll repeat over and over again, 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.”
For Wardley, loyalty is not a slogan. It is the bedrock of a second shot at Dubois, scheduled for 17 October, when he will try to rip back the WBO belt and, in his words, “do my bit for the gym”.
Warren backs Davison – with a warning
Davison has not been left to face the criticism alone. Promoter Frank Warren, who has steered countless world title campaigns, also moved to defend the trainer’s reputation, pointing out that high-profile involvement inevitably attracts scrutiny.
At the same time, Warren made it clear that Itauma’s defeat demands a hard look at fight management.
“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 crux of the argument now swirling around Davison’s corner: a young heavyweight, a huge stage, and a fight that slipped from near-certainty to bitter disappointment because the pace never dropped.
For Itauma, the lesson is brutal but clear. For Davison, the questions will not fade until one of his fighters answers them in the ring. Wardley has already volunteered. On 17 October, with Dubois in front of him and the spotlight burning, he intends to turn that criticism into a statement.
