Dubois-Wardley 2 Fight Week: 'More Clinical' vs. 'Revenge'

Fight week is here, and Monday was media day. Daniel Dubois and Fabio Wardley did the rounds at the Radisson Blu in Canary Wharf, and Queensberry sent over the photos. Both men looked locked in, and nobody looked like they were there to make friends.

We already did the full breakdown in our preview, Run It Back. This one is about what they're saying now, five days out from Saturday's WBO heavyweight title fight at The O2 in London, live on DAZN pay-per-view.

DUBOIS: QUICKER, CLEANER

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The champion's message is simple. He got off the floor twice in May and still stopped Wardley in the 11th. Now he says the job gets done sooner.

"I'll finish it quicker this time," Dubois said at the DAZN face-off, per British Boxing News. "I'm a better fighter, improved fighter. I'll finish it quicker. Even without that, I've got his number. This time around, it's going to be more clinical."

He also told Queensberry that wearing the belt has sharpened him: "I feel like I've improved and, having been the champion, I've improved double."

His trainer, Don Charles, is selling the same thing. "We're expecting, like I said, a better version of Fabio, and we're definitely going to bring a better version of ourselves," Charles told talkSPORT Boxing, per Boxing 247. "We've trained as if with the hunger of a challenger."

That's the right worry for this camp. Dubois won the first fight, but he started it on the canvas. If he gives Wardley those early rounds again, "clinical" goes out the window.

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WARDLEY: LESSONS AND REVENGE

Wardley has been refreshingly honest about how the first one got away. He had Dubois down early and decided the night was over.

"One thing is, I need to be able to adjust on the fly. I think I got very single-minded the first time around and I was just going in a straight line," Wardley told Queensberry, per Seconds Out. "It was just head down, no, crack on, power through, power through, and it didn't pan out in the same way, so I think there's just going to be a bit more of a relaxed approach to it."

He isn't making excuses either. "I have zero excuses for the loss on the night and zero excuses going into the rematch," he said at the launch press conference, per BBC Sport.

And the O2 doesn't scare him. "The O2 is like a home away from home for me," Wardley said on DAZN, per British Boxing News. "Looking forward to getting straight back into it. Going to be a rematch and going to be revenge."

These two still don't seem to like each other much. BBC Sport reported that at the launch, Wardley asked, "can we be cool?" Dubois answered: "after the fight, man."

THE REST OF THE WEEK

Per the fight-week schedule, open workouts are Wednesday, Oct. 14, at Old Spitalfields Market, free and open to the public. The final press conference is Thursday, and the ceremonial weigh-in is Friday back at Spitalfields. Bakhodir Jalolov vs. Solomon Dacres is the co-feature.

THE TAKE

Here's what I'm watching: the first three rounds. Wardley says he'll be patient when he has Dubois hurt. Dubois says he'll be sharper from the opening bell. One of them is going to be wrong, and we'll probably know early.

It's on our Guess the Purse board too. UK purses don't get published, so make your best guess.

Sources: Queensberry fight-week images release (Oct. 12, 2026), British Boxing News, BBC Sport, Seconds Out, Boxing 247, bet365 News (fight-week schedule)