Derrick “Bozy” Ennis has told Jarrell Miller that victory over Fabio Wardley on July 7 will open the door to opportunities that have been absent in his career since a positive drugs test cancelled his fight in 2019 with Anthony Joshua.

Miller had been scheduled to challenge Joshua, then the IBF, WBA and WBO heavyweight champion, until he tested positive for the banned substance GW1516 – a selective androgen receptor modulator – and was subsequently replaced against Joshua by Andy Ruiz Jnr, who so memorably stopped Joshua to inflict his first defeat.

The 36-year-old Miller has been far from another fight anywhere near as lucrative as the $4.5 million he was reportedly set to earn against Joshua. His biggest fight since then came against Daniel Dubois, who stopped him in December 2023, but a bout with the 30-year-old Wardley at Portman Road represents the main event of a promotion at the stadium of Ipswich Town, a Premier League football club.

Perhaps more relevantly, Wardley is English – it is heavyweights from England who, more than any other nationality, populate the upper reaches of the heavyweight division – and promoted by Frank Warren’s Queensberry Promotions, so influential in the careers of so many of Miller’s and Wardley’s potential opponents.

Since suffering his only defeat, Miller has drawn with Ruiz, and Ennis, his new trainer, told BoxingScene: “It’s really important for him. If he wins that, then he can fight whoever next.

“That’s a good fight. Wardley’s a good fighter. Young, good fighter. He could be dangerous. He can box, move. But if Jarrell is on and listens, he can beat him.

“He’s supposed to be coming back to the gym. I haven’t been staying in contact, but my other trainer that works under me has been staying in contact with him. I been busy with three fighters.

“He’s getting better. We catching on that. We got him catching – [but] his last fight, he had a couple guys in the corner saying stuff, and I was telling them, ‘Ain’t nobody can’t tell him what to do ‘cause you confusing him now. One guy should be saying it, then you follow behind that guy. You can holla out, but when you in the corner, you let one guy talk.’”

In the modern era, overseas fighters and their teams have expressed concerns about the quality of judging against British fighters in Britain, but Ennis said: “I don’t think it’s a concern at all. If you go out there and do your job and do what you’re supposed to do, they can’t deny you. If you go the distance and it’s close, they gonna deny you then [laughs]. 

“But you gotta take it from the beginning. You gotta at least win them rounds convincingly. I seen people get denied there a lot of times, too, though. I’m confident.”