FABIO WARDLEY was facing defeat in the face against Justis Huni – before one punch turned the tide.
The Brit looked in real trouble during Saturday’s WBA interim heavyweight clash in Ipswich.
Fighting on home turf, Wardley was the heavy favourite going into the bout.
But Huni dominated from the off, taking control in front of a 20,000-strong crowd at a soggy Portman Road.
The Aussie was miles ahead on the cards heading into the championship rounds.
From nowhere, Wardley delivered a towering right hand early in the 10th to seal a remarkable victory.
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The judges’ scorecards made grim reading for the 6ft5 heavyweight prior to his stunning KO.
Wardley was down on all three cards, with two of the judges giving him just ONE round. Huni was leading 89-82 on two of them and 88-83 on the other.
One fan gasped on X: “He was down bad too wow.”
Another said: “I didn’t give Wardley a round. The 1st round was close but I thought Huni nicked it with cleaner punches.”
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While a third added: “These were very accurate scorecards in a hometown fight for once.”
Wardley’s promoter Frank Warren described the knockout punch as a “Deontay Wilder moment”.
The win propels Wardley into world title consideration.
It was his 18th knockout in 19 professional wins.
He said: “I don’t profess to being any [Oleksandr] Usyk or Justis Huni who has all the skills.
“But I know how to win fights and that’s one thing I knew I had to do tonight.
“Justis Huni is a great operator. We’d drilled everything over and over again.
“I should’ve performed better in some of those rounds.”
Huni replaced American Jarrell Miller on short notice.
The Australian suffered his first professional defeat after 12 consecutive wins.
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Referencing the big KO punch, he said: “That’s my curse.
“I even said before this fight it only takes one second to switch off, it happened tonight.”
Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk
