“It’s Not Even About The Money”, Fabio Wardley Not Interested In Ben Shalom’s Latest Offer For Him To Face Frazer Clarke
- BOXXER Withdrew Frazer Clarke From The Fabio Wardley British Title Purse Bids
- Ben Shalom Has Made Wardley Multiple Offers To Defend His Title Against Clarke
- The British Champion Has Revealed That He Is Not Interested In BOXXER’s Proposition
In April, the BBBofC officially ordered Fabio Wardley (16-0, 15 KOs) to defend his British Heavyweight championship against his then-mandatory challenger, Frazer Clarke (6-0, 5 KOs).
Back-and-forth began between the pair and fans were in store for a terrific build-up preceding an all-action Heavyweight fight.
Ben Shalom, BOXXER CEO, insisted that Wardley was a promotional free agent, not contracted to Matchroom and that they were in talks with Wardley’s team to stage the fight on a BOXXER/Sky show and would continue in their attempt to make a deal before purse bids on May 10.
A deal was not reached and BOXXER withdrew Clarke from the bids leading to unprecedented levels of negativity from the fans towards BOXXER with said company and its founder trending virtually all day on Twitter as a result of criticism.
Shalom insisted that Clarke wasn’t ready for the fight and he wanted a ten-rounder on June 10 before going into a British title fight.
The BOXXER CEO then revealed to iFL TV that he would make Wardley a one-fight offer to face Clarke later in the year. “We want to make that fight, I believe Fabio Wardley will sit down and see the numbers on the table and be like ‘Where else am I gonna make that sort of money?’”
Fabio Wardley Declines Shalom Offer
Wardley has not quite taken that approach and has declined Shalom’s offer, he revealed to Boxing News.
“It’s just not of interest currently. Not the way it was structured and put together, no. Not that specific deal.” It does seem like the offer on the table wasn’t actually a one-fight offer, reading between the lines of Wardley’s comment, and came with caveats.
Wardley confirmed that he still wanted the Clarke fight but he wasn’t going to necessarily jump to take Ben Shalom’s offer “whatever that is”.
“It’s not even about the money” the British Heavyweight champion declared, “It’s about ‘why would I have to go and fight on his show?’.
“Ben’s offer is not gonna be for Frazer to fight on DAZN is it? With me, Ed and Matchroom. So that’s (the money) not the problem with me right now, it’s me looking at what’s best for me.”
Wardley seems to prefer taking the fight/any fight on his terms with his team/platform in Matchroom/DAZN rather than being the opponent as he would on a BOXXER/Sky Sports show.
“I pushed him to the back of the queue, he had his opportunity. Do I want to rope myself into a situation where maybe that gets pulled again last minute?”