Fabio Wardley: We’ve seen what I’ve done with amateurs in the past

FABIO Wardley will become Britain’s latest stadium fighter when he headlines at Ipswich Town’s Portman Road on Saturday night.

When Wardley’s dream became reality, he would have factored in a nasty, loud fight week with controversial New Yorker, Jarrell Miller, but the American’s withdrawal means that he will instead face Australia’s quietly spoken but dangerous Justis Huni.

The undefeated Huni (12-0, 7 KOs) was good enough to win a bronze medal at the 2019 World Championships which means that rather than thinking up a whole raft of insults and comebacks for the loud Miler, Wardley need only dust-off his well worn stock answers to the inevitable questions about his own lack of amateur experience and background in white collar boxing.

The brutal way that 30 year-old Wardley (18-0-1, 17 KOs) took out Olympic bronze medallist, Frazer Clarke, in the opening round of their rematch last October should have brought an end to the discussion once and for all but Wardley will once again have to deal with a whole host of interviewers asking whether he is concerned about Huni being a better boxer.

“Maybe but is he a better fighter? We’ve seen what I’ve done with amateurs in the past”

Wardley said during a DAZN Face-Off with Huni.

Fabio Wardley is ready to etch his name in Ipswich history at his beloved Portman Raod 📝💙

Remaining tickets 👉 https://t.co/j5LxSk00Gw 🎟️#WardleyHuni | June 7th | @DAZNBoxing | Portman Road Stadium, Ipswich pic.twitter.com/afG1VkPq99

— Queensberry Promotions (@Queensberry) June 6, 2025

“Olympic bronze medalists, Commonwealth Games medalists, I’ve come up against them and it’s always been the very obvious play off against each other, “Oh he’s white collar. He hasn’t got that background and this guy is star studied amateur.”

“Great, but we’re not in the amateurs anymore. This isn’t the amateur game. This is professional boxing and I’ve been in the game longer than him. I’ve done more in the game than he has. I’ve been on these big stages under the bright lights and under the pressure.

“I think this is a sink or swim moment for Justis”

When Wardley’s original opponent, Miller, pulled out, he and the team at Queensberry Promotions had to quickly scramble around for a replacement worthy of headlining a stadium show.

Huni, 26, is ranked highly with the WBA and – most importantly – was ready and willing to jump on a flight to England and take the fight.

Miler is a big, powerful man with a solid chin and a decent engine but a good number of well informed people believe that Wardley has actually accepted a more difficult task by agreeing to fight Huni.

I think they’re both difficult fights but Miller is difficult because he’s a wardrobe of a man. He’s going to walk at you and he’s going to put the pressure on. He’s going to stay in front of your face and he’s going to be hard to move and do anything about. That is difficult in its own right.

Justis poses a bunch of different questions stylistically. Good feet, good hands, quick, puts his punches together well and can get in and out of range so he’s got more.

Justis has got a few different facets to his game . There’s different areas we’re going to have to pay attention to um and that makes it especially difficult when he’s a fresher opponent, in newer and gives me a few weeks to kind of figure out that puzzle.

If Wardley can’t figure out Huni’s style, he has proven that he is willing to dispense with strategy and go to war. Wardley has an intense violent alter ego that he is able to call upon. The 12-round brawl he and Frazer Clarke waged last March will be remembered for years to come and in 2022 his reaction to Nathan Gorman badly damaging his nose was to explode with a volley of power shots and stop him in the very next round.

“One of the few – and maybe the only – smart things that Deontay Wilder said was that you have to be great for 12 rounds but I only have to be great for one second and land on you and it’s all over,” Wardley said.

“That can be the story of this fight. He may pull out all the tricks and he may delve deep into that amateur boxing bag and and box circles around me in the ring but if I land we all know what happens.”

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