Fabio Wardley hits back at Frazer Clarke and his British rivals: 'We have to scrap it out!'

Fabio Wardley wants to defend his British heavyweight title against one of his unbeaten domestic rivals; Olympic bronze medallist Frazer Clarke has been one of the most prominent challengers calling for the Wardley fight; "If they want to jump to me early then they can," Wardley said

Fabio Wardley can prove himself as the 'real deal' in a big domestic heavyweight clash against Frazer Clarke, says Johnny Nelson.

Fabio Wardley, the reigning British heavyweight champion, is adamant he is looking to take on one of his unbeaten domestic rivals next.

Olympic super-heavyweight bronze medallist Frazer Clarke and English titlist Solomon Dacres, as well as David Adeleye, are looking for a shot at Wardley and the Lonsdale Belt he holds.

Clarke was ringside at the O2 Arena on Saturday to see Wardley win his fight against Michael Polite-Coffie.

Frazer Clarke doubles down on his claim he is better than Wardley

"Whoever wants it next can get it," Wardley told Sky Sports News.

But he added: "As long as they're easy to deal with. They don't make it hard work. Because I'm not here to mess about and bow down to anyone.

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"Ultimately I'm the champion and you're coming to me to try and take something I have. So you need to be humble in that sense and come across with some humility and hopefully we can get the fights made."

Clarke is only six fights into his professional career.

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"I had to go above and beyond most to earn my stripes and get a British title shot," Wardley added. "I had to have 15 fights, I had to take on the likes of Nathan Gorman, Nick Webb, Simon Vallily, Eric Molina, those type of guys. High calibre, good guys. There was a lot of pedigree behind them.

Highlights of Clarke against Bogdan Dinu as the Olympic bronze medallist maintained his perfect start to life in the professional ranks

"Everyone wants to skip a few spaces. But that's fine, if they want to jump to me early then they can. The ranking and order they go in is irrelevant to me."

Wardley acknowledges that having these domestic fights is important.

"We have to scrap it out amongst ourselves before we can figure out who's the one to send off to go for those world titles. Which is great because it means the division is full, there's a lot going on," he said.

"You have to recognise that you can't just get through fighting nobodies that no one knows that no one's going to pay attention to because legacy is a key thing. You need something that the fans are going to grip to.

Clarke broke Dinu's ribs as he secured his sixth straight win as a professional

"You do need a good dance partner to work with on the night and thankfully the division is full of them, so there's a lot of good fights out there to be made.

"[Heavyweight] is packed with people who are now starting out. People in the middle area where I am, moving towards fringe world title level and then obviously we've got a lot of boys at the top as well.

"The heavyweight division as a whole for the UK is packed out and it's great as well because we get to see great domestic dust-ups. They're some of the best fights that we get to see as fans."

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