Wardley seeks spring date for first title defence
Fabio Wardley hopes to make his first defence of the WBO world title in the spring – with a number of potential opponents under consideration.
Wardley was declared champion in November after Oleksandr Usyk relinquished the belt, rather than make a mandatory defence against the Ipswich heavyweight.
And his preference is for his first fight as champion to take place in the UK rather than overseas, having stopped Joseph Parker in the 11th round at London's O2 Arena in November in his most recent contest.
"We're aiming for April/May time, something like that. That's a good time-frame, allowing enough time for a (training) camp and all the rest, but nothing's solidly in the book as yet," Wardley told BBC Radio Suffolk.
"Where depends on the opportunity and the opponent, things like that. Preferably for me, at least my first defence, I'd love to be in the UK, but if the right opportunity comes around it's going to be hard at this level to say no to things."
'Always wanted to be at the top'
Fellow Briton Moses Itauma is the number one ranked challenger but his next fight against Jermaine Franklin has been rescheduled for March.
So second-in-line Filip Hrgovic, Agit Kabayel and veteran Derek Chisora could all be on the 'possibles' list to face Wardley.
"There's no backwards steps anymore, not at this stage. It would be the likelihood of a Chisora, something like that. He's probably more of a front-runner over someone like Kabayel," he said.
"Maybe other names to throw in there would be the likes of Hrgovic, potentially, or (China's Zhilei) Zhang. We have to look within the constraints of the WBO rankings and pick from there.
"It's fantastic, it's where I wanted to be when I started my career in professional boxing, I always wanted to be at the top. It's taken 10 years to plough our way through and earn our spot but we're here now and we've got the pick of the litter in that sense."
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Wardley would still love an opportunity to take on Usyk, who still holds the WBA, WBC and IBF heavyweight belts, but accepts it is a case of having to bide his time.
"That's up to the man himself. A fight between us could be as far away or as close as he wants it to be. It could be next or never," he said.
"He holds the keys in the division, he's earned that right to dictate things."
Another opponent Wardley would love to face is former world champion Tyson Fury, who announced the end of his most recent 'retirement' two weeks ago.
"He wants a little warm-up fight and then to try and grab a world title around the summer time," said 31-year-old Wardley.
"We were trying to poke and prod him into a fight but I don't think he wants to jump that deep into the water after a year out of the ring. He's going to dip his toe back in and maybe we can catch him in the summer."
Wardley believes Usyk might be reluctant to take on Fury again in the short term, having beaten him twice already, so Wardley represents the latter's best opportunity of a world title shot.
"There's only two options for that – me and Usyk. As a plan he might try to snatch mine off me and then try and get hold of the Usyk fight again," he added.
Listen to Graeme McLoughlin's full BBC Radio Suffolk interview with Fabio Wardley from 18:45 GMT on Friday.
