Cinderella, the introvert and Warren’s split loyalties

I promote both Fabio Wardley and Daniel Dubois, and I’ll be honest – I find it difficult.

On Saturday night in a heavyweight world title fight, I am basically in both corners. They are very nice guys who I like and I have stories with them both.

Showing my emotions will be difficult but we’re in professional boxing and the best around will fight the best.

I’ll go into both dressing rooms before the fight and the messaging will be the same, wishing them the best of luck.

There is every chance that the fight will end with one man on the canvas and, after then, my priority will be to console the loser first – I can’t be jumping around celebrating.

It’s tough. I don’t really want anyone to lose but there is always a winner and a loser. I know that.

Daniel has been with us from day one. We were sponsoring him when he was 17 and he signed with us when he was 18 and old enough to turn professional.

So I’ve obviously got quite an affinity with him. We’ve had a couple of hiccups on the way. But his resume is unbelievable for such a young heavyweight.

With Fabio, it really is a Cinderella story.

Could you imagine this guy with no amateur experience coming to you, wanting to sign with you, and that guy would be a heavyweight world champion in his 21st fight?

You’d say forget about that, that’s an impossibility, but that’s what he’s done.

This isn’t the first time I’ve put two of my own top fighters in against each other.

I can look back at Steve Collins fighting Nigel Benn. I made Joe Calzaghe against Robin Reid and when Joe fought Chris Eubank.

Like them, Daniel and Fabio wanted this fight. It will be a shootout from the first bell, a heavyweight version of Marvin Hagler v Tommy Hearns.

You will not be able to take your eyes away from it.

Daniel is a very introverted man. He’s not somebody who goes out boasting, and I know he’s taken some stick this week because of that quiet nature.

I am protective of him. I always try to talk to him before we go into any media event, prepare him.

He just doesn’t enjoy that part of the fight game. He’s really not into all the verbals.

Whoever you are, you look at how people behave and what their make-up is. That’s if you want to get the best out of them.

You have to be clever, not sly, in how you deal with it. Good interviewers do that. Daniel does all his talking in the ring.

I don’t think he’ll ever change. His dad is his mentor and that’s all he knows – he’ll look to his dad before answering the question and still usually does.

That family is a tight unit. Some boxers, as they get successful, go partying but he doesn’t do any of that stuff.

After he beat Anthony Joshua, he just wanted to go home.

I had to literally push him into the press room so the world could see him after that magnificent performance.

Our job as promoters is to find something you can bring out and get it to the public, so they want to be on this journey with this fighter.

Sometimes it’s difficult. With Prince Naseem Hamed, for example, it was easy. When I first met Naz, I knew exactly what I was going to do with him and how we were going to promote him.

So some guys are easily promotable, others it can be hard work, but that’s the business we’re in.

But Daniel has come out of his skin a bit lately. The funniest thing for me was when he did the head-to-head with Filip Hrgovic a few fights ago.

Hrgovic said Daniel had no heart, and Daniel just said he was going to knock him out – using an expletive I wouldn’t like to repeat.

I had never heard Daniel even swear before!

Everybody there was like: ‘What is that?’ It was like getting the vicar to swear. He found a voice from within himself.

On the other hand, Fabio is a very articulate, well-presented guy. I signed Fabio after his first fight with Frazer Clarke, which was a thrilling fight that ended in a draw, but I still believe he won that fight.

He’s been learning on the job and he’s done brilliant.

As Fabio says himself: 36 minutes of boxing, all it takes is a second from me.

He pulls that punch out of the blue, and when he lets that bomb go, you’re in trouble. He’s a phenomenal, powerful puncher, as is Daniel.

The winner of Saturday night is only going to be in big fights and we’ll see whether Oleksandr Usyk will want to unify the division or not. That’s uncertain at the moment.

Whatever happens, we have these two guys who could be carrying British boxing for the foreseeable, then later this year we’ve got AJ and Fury finally getting it on.

Like every era in boxing, there becomes a change in the guard and 2026 may the year for it in British heavyweight boxing.