Fabio Wardley recognizes his Joseph Parker win as his biggest moment professionally as an athlete but yet for some, there is still a bit of an asterisk on that moment. Appearing on The Ariel Helwani Show, Wardley discussed several aspects of his win over Parker which saw Wardley cement himself as the new interim WBO heavyweight champion.
After securing an eleventh round TKO over someone as established as Parker to where a potential fight with Oleksandr Usyk seems well within his grasp, one would think Wardley would purely be celebrating. However there are people out there who have been criticizing the nature of the Parker stoppage as being one that was quite premature.
After showing his due respect for Fabio Wardley as a fighter, Helwani mentioned he felt the stoppage was quite early but when asking if pundits like himself were being annoying bringing up these thoughts that stoppage was premature in the context of feeling like it was detracting from his win and Wardley said,
No, look, thank you. I appreciate it. But no, it doesn’t. It doesn’t upset me. It doesn’t offend me. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion."
"That’s no problem for me whatsoever. Again, I just ask that people don’t take away from what actually I achieved on the night because going into that fight, no one even gave me a hope. No one gave me a chance.
Fabio Wardley thinks people can say what they want about the stoppage but follow up with due praise
Fabio Wardley articulated a fairly balanced take where he understands those who felt like the Joseph Parker stoppage came prematurely but also feeling a certain pride in his accomplishment and feeling like that should be acknowledged as such.
Speaking to Ariel Helwani as he further expounded upon his thoughts from the quote above, Wardley continued,
Everyone thought I’d be done for within two, three, four rounds, whichever else. So, it’s fair for everyone to say what they want to say about the stoppage."
"but just make sure that’s followed by praising the accomplishment of the achievement. That’s 100% fair.