“The WBO world champion. That would be nice,” David Adeleye said of Fabio Wardley, floating the idea of a rematch in 2026 in an interview with Sky Sports.
It would be nice — but it’s also wildly premature.
Adeleye isn’t talking from a position of momentum or leverage. He’s talking from memory, from a fight two years ago that didn’t just end in defeat but in a one-sided beating. When Adeleye tried to trade with Wardley the first time, he was overwhelmed almost immediately, learning the hard way that he wasn’t on the same level.
Since then, nothing about his trajectory has forced Wardley to look back.
Adeleye is coming off a clear decision loss to Filip Hrgovic, a fight that pushed him further out of the heavyweight conversation rather than back into it. He isn’t ranked by any of the four sanctioning bodies, and he isn’t carrying a win that would justify being mentioned as a title challenger — let alone as a priority defense for a newly crowned champion.
Yet Adeleye speaks as if timing is the only obstacle.
“I get to right my wrong,” he said, acknowledging Wardley’s status as a champion with a target on his back.
That target, however, is aimed higher than Adeleye.
Wardley’s realistic options sit in a different bracket entirely, involving names that elevate his profile and his bank account. A rematch with a fighter he already dismantled — and who hasn’t rebuilt his case since — offers neither.
Adeleye can talk about revenge all he wants. Until he changes the direction of his career in the ring, it remains exactly that: talk, not a pathway back to Fabio Wardley.
Last Updated on 12/12/2025
