HEAVYWEIGHT FORCES SOON TO COLLIDE

ON MAY 9 in Manchester, at the finest and most atmospheric arena in Europe, the heavyweight division will literally explode.

The landscape of the sport’s signature weight class will shift in a big way when Fabio Wardley defends his WBO world heavyweight title against the recent IBF world champ Daniel Dubois.

When the previously Interim champion Fabio was upgraded to full champion status, quite simply the biggest and most captivating fight that could be made for him is against Daniel.

For fight fans, along with everyone else who is tempted by giants colliding, there is nothing not to like about this match-up. You just know that we are all in for a night of tension, anticipation and ultimate drama at the Co-op Arena.

Fabio could have opted for a typical top-15 confirmation of his world champion status, given that his coronation was an administrative one. He was having none of that.

His ideal path that he dearly wished for was to fight for the world title against Oleksandr Usyk. Originally Oleksandr indicated that he was up for it, but after Fabio defeated Joseph Parker he chose to drop the belt and have some sort of voluntary before a mandatory defence of his WBC championship.

It was a shame for Fabio, but he got the consolation of being crowned WBO world champion and he deserved as much after his defeat of Joseph, who everyone was saying he occupied No.1 in the rankings.

Fabio has got that fire inside of him that craves and responds to the biggest of occasions and events, the sort of fights where people tell him he is not favourite to succeed.

He keeps on confounding the doubters and critics and keeps on demanding that his assignments become more perilous. He rightly gets enormous credit for where he has got to considering his backstory, but I believe it is high time to just give him his props for what he is. A fully deserving world champion.

And don’t think for a minute that Daniel is going to be there to make up the numbers.

It seems that people easily forget what Daniel has achieved just because he has come up short twice against the undisputed world champion, someone who most people suspect might just be unbeatable at the moment.

It appears to be overlooked now that Daniel took the previously unbeaten records of Jarrell Miller and Filip Hrgovic before battering a two-time world champion in Anthony Joshua. Over the two fights against AJ and Oleksandr he was a big part in attracting well in excess of over 180,000 people to Wembley Stadium.

Like Fabio, he too could have requested a more routine path. But he wanted to be straight back on the biggest stage against the toughest possible opponent.

These fellas are not messing about. They both thrive under pressure and it brings the best out of them.

As for the fight we’ve got in front of us on May 9, as the title suggests, just don’t blink. It has got all the ingredients to deliver open warfare with plenty of heavy artillery. It might just be one of those fights that leaves us demanding a rematch or even a trilogy.

What it does do is keep the heavyweight division cooking. We’ve already started the year with Agit Kabayel confirming his credentials in front of a packed house in Germany and now we’ve got another four big heavyweight dates booked across the next couple of months.

Moses Itauma is back in business on March 28 against Jermaine Franklin, Dereck Chisora and Deontay Wilder will dance on April 4 and, of course, it has now been confirmed that Tyson Fury will be back in the ring on April 11 against Arslenbek Makhmudov.

The heavyweight action doesn’t end there, far from it, so stay tuned for forthcoming updates.

LOOKING BACK JUST over a week or so, it was of course disappointing to see Nick Ball lose out in his WBA world featherweight title defence against Brandon Figueroa in front of a brilliant crowd in Liverpool.

It was a cracking and close encounter and it quickly became obvious that a real battle was about to play out in front of us. The American, however, landed the mighty blow in the final round and how Nick got up and continued I am not quite sure. Credit and congratulations to Brandon and we wish him well for the future.

For Nick it is a first setback, but it is just part of his career journey. As I heard his trainer Paul Stevenson say the other day, he said to Nick on the Monday after the fight that mourning the loss of his world title ends now.

It is all about the future and the next glorious chapter. I don’t believe Nick is the type to dwell on the past too much anyway and he will dust himself down and go again. They will debrief and make some decisions about what changes to be made, like whether it is time to move up a weight after a long, long time making 126lbs.

There are great fights waiting for him at super featherweight if he decides to make the jump.