Daniel Dubois needs less than two rounds to stop Fabio Wardley again and keep his WBO heavyweight title

The first fight took 11 rounds and two trips to the canvas. The rematch was over before the end of the second.

Daniel Dubois stopped Fabio Wardley at 2:21 of the second round on Saturday at the O2 Arena in London to keep his WBO heavyweight title. Wardley's corner threw in the towel as Dubois kept landing.

A fast start

Dubois dropped Wardley with a straight right hand inside the first 20 seconds. Wardley got up and made it out of the first round but Dubois went right back after him in the second and never let up.

"Fabio is a great boy, coming in for the second time, but it was my time and my era," Dubois said. "I had my intentions, bad intentions from the beginning."

Rewriting the first fight

Dubois took the title from Wardley in May in Manchester when he got up from two knockdowns to stop him in the 11th round. This time there was no drama for the champion.

"My back was against the wall the first time," Dubois said. "This time we just had to go out there and show that we mean business, which is what we did tonight."

The 29-year-old from Greenwich is now 24-3 with 23 knockouts. Wardley, 31, fell to 20-2-1.

On the undercard

British and Commonwealth lightweight champion Louie O'Doherty kept his belts on a majority draw with Michael Gomez Jr. after 12 rounds. Uzbek heavyweight Bakhodir Jalolov stayed unbeaten at 18-0 with a unanimous decision over Solomon Dacres and Irish heavyweight Adam Olaniyan stopped Dan Garber in the second round to move to 5-0.