IPSWICH is not a part of the world anyone would immediately associate with the sport of boxing. The oldest Anglo-Saxon town in England, Ipswich is where the idea of a good night out consists of half a lager and a pub quiz. Nobody ever grows up dreaming of moving to Ipswich. In fact, it’s a fair bet that nobody grows up dreaming of Ipswich at all.

Credit where credit is due, though, at one time this picturesque and historically blessed town of 144,000 people could boast of a top quality football side, managed by the legendary Bobby Robson.

But that was back in the late seventies and early eighties, when football was still an honest man’s game. Nowadays, the club, Ipswich Town FC, is languishing at twelfth in the Championship. The Tractor Boys, as the club is affectionately known, have in 2025 clearly gone out of their way to live up to this moniker on the pitch.

This is where heavyweight fighter and newly crowned WBO champion Fabio Wardley steps into the picture — a proud Ipswich man to his core, to the point of wearing the town’s football club’s colours into the ring.

In Wardley we have a heavyweight fighter who has only just bucked the proverbial trend when it comes to a boxer’s development and journey, he has stuck his two fingers up to it.

With zero prior amateur experience — literally, none whatsoever — this former white collar fighter has climbed the professional ranks to the point of now being spoken of as a future undisputed honcho of the blue riband division.

How so, and how could it be?

Last weekend, Wardley’s stunning 11th round stoppage of New Zealand’s Joseph Parker at the O2 Arena in London cemented his status as the best of Britain. In so doing, he has verily taken a blowtorch to the conventional and previously set-in-stone path that has underpinned every heavyweight’s journey to the top of the sport hitherto.

Said set-in-stone path dictates that a top fighter’s journey in the sport should begin not long after he or she dispenses with the swaddling clothes of infancy.

Boxing, it has long been felt and believed, is a craft that has to begin when the brain is still a sponge, capable of absorbing its finer lessons and points.

Wardley instead began his journey as more David Brent than David Haye. A former recruiter by trade — the office job par excellence — he found in white collar boxing the path to saving his soul and spirit from a future of nine to five tedium.

Four white collar fights later, he made the fateful decision to turn professional, marking him out as either crackpot or genius. Last weekend, he confirmed that it was the latter.

Between the ropes, he has proved over his 21 fights to date that in his chest beats the heart of a man who will not be denied. Whatever attributes he may have lacked as a consequence of avoiding the well-trodden path of amateur experience, he more than makes up for with his knack of learning on the job.

Standing 6’5”, the 30-year-old has the physique of a Sherman Tank and the chin of an oak tree when it comes to punch resistance. He can also punch with both hands.

Against Parker, Wardley was behind on all three judges’ scorecards as the fight ticked down towards its twelve-round conclusion. That was until he summoned the stamina and strength to finally penetrate the veteran New Zealander’s defences and close the show.

It proved one of the most exciting heavyweight contests in some time, and consequently there is a more than good chance of a rematch being agreed sooner rather than later.

Refreshingly, Wardley conducts himself with due concern for his own and the sport’s image when not engaged in combat. He speaks in complete sentences that are shorn of the usual, and by now tiresome, invective and epithets. This alone makes him a class apart.

Going into his fight last weekend, the consensus was that it was going to be a step over affair for Joseph Parker on the way to facing current undisputed heavyweight champ Oleksandr Usyk for all the marbles.

Wardley, it was felt, lacked the requisite experience and skill set to stand in Parker’s way. He and his team clearly knew different and succeeded in throwing that proverbial spanner in the works.

This being said, it is difficult to see Wardley being able to do what both Anthony Johsua and Tyson Fury have already failed to do twice, each against the wonderfully schooled Ukrainian champion in handing him his first defeat.

But then, proving naysayers wrong has long been a feature of boxing at its best, and in this unlikeliest of heavyweight contenders British boxing has itself a man for whom the accomplished fact has no place.

So it’s back to the sleepy environs of Ipswich that Wardley has returned, determined to build on his success and continue his ascent up the highest mountain in all of competitive sports.

The obligatory appearance on the pitch at the next home game involving his beloved Ipswich Town will no doubt help to galvanise the town’s footballing fortunes.

It sure is a team that needs all the help it can get. In their last game against West Brom, the centre forward arrived in the opposition’s box at one point with a full beard after starting his run clean shaven.

Up and down the flanks the full backs hurtled like drunk men trying to catch the last bus home from the pub, while every tackle in midfield was a travesty.

Fabio Wardley, given his winning ways currently, will be hoping that his example somehow rubs off on his beloved football team. Because as things stand, he emits the aura of a man for whom anything is possible.