PARKER vs WARDLEY

A CLASSIC HEAVYWEIGHT showdown will take place at The O2 in London when Joseph Parker will take on the challenge of Fabio Wardley in ‘All or Nothing’ on Saturday, 25 October

In a battle of the Interim world champions, WBO belt holder Parker going up against the WBA equivalent Wardley, with the New Zealander’s WBO Interim World Championship on the line in the capital.

New Zealander Parker (36-3, 24 KOs) was supposed to fight Daniel Dubois for the IBF title in February before ultimately facing and demolishing Martin Bakole in two rounds in a first defence of his Interim title, which he parted from Zhilei Zhang in 2024, having previously defeated Deontay Wilder.

The notable victories capped a career resurgence for the former WBO world champion, who lost an Interim title encounter against Joe Joyce in 2022, which followed a pair of wins over Derek Chisora. Now 33, Parker lost his WBO to Anthony Joshua in March 2018 and was subsequently outpointed by Dillian Whyte four months later.

Wardley (19-0-1, 18 KOs) comes into this fight off the back of a sensational stoppage of Justis Huni in June at the home of his local football club, Ipswich Town. Wardley became British champion at the end of 2022 with a defeat of Nathan Gorman before making a successful defence against David Adeleye in Riyadh just under a year later.

Wardley and Frazer Clarke then fought a Fight of the Year in March 2024, which resulted in a draw, before the 30-year-old emphatically downed his challenger in the Riyadh rematch, brutally felling the Olympian in the opening round.

Promoter Frank Warren added: “This will be a corker of a heavyweight clash and one which will shine a huge light on the division. Fights like this one are as good as it can get outside of the champion defending his belts and the sort we want to see happen.

“Neither Joe or Fabio wanted to wait about and protect their positions and credit to them both for this. I believe this is a genuine even-money fight with a mesh of styles that I am sure will be eye-catching and highly crowd-pleasing.

“We promised to keep firing up this heavyweight division and we intend to keep all the contenders jockeying for position until the time comes to fight for the ultimate prize.

“It is wonderful to be back at The O2 arena with ‘All or Nothing’. It will be a great show with some extremely competitive and meaningful fights on the undercard. This event will be the hottest ticket in town.”

“Joe is coming off 3 brilliant wins and is looking to cement his position at the top of the rankings whilst Fabio continues to prove all his doubters wrong and will want to leave The O2 with his unblemished record intact.