Bloodied nose, blurred vision and uncharted waters but Fabio Wardley successfully swam in the deep end and came out to shore with his trio of heavyweight titles still intact after a back-and-forth battle with unbeaten contender Frazer Clarke to headline London’s O2 Arena on Easter Sunday.
R5 knockdown, point deduction prove costly for Clarke
114-113 Wardley, 115-112 Clarke, 113-113 split draw: Fabio Wardley retains British, Commonwealth and WBO European titles after 12-round duel
- Grateful: Wardley speaks of massive pride having headlined the O2 after four white-collar matches, six-year pro career in his first 12-round contest
- Wardley critical but honest in assessment afterwards: “I did a lot of things wrong and made mistakes, but still learning – the fight taught me a lot – to put on an entertaining fan just giving the belt the respect it deserves, being fought like that… It’s not an ideal way to box or fight, ultimately there’s value in it – always had energy to push it, they’re big boxes ticked.”
- Clarke on how he’s feeling, during post-fight press conference: “I’m gutted [with the draw], went there to take those titles back to my babies but everyone enjoyed, hopefully we can run it back. We can do it again.”
- Reflecting on the performance: “I’ve shown I can do something in this sport. I knew he [Wardley] was tough and comes alive when he gets hit, why didn’t you turn the screw a little bit? Gotta believe in myself a bit more.”
FABIO Wardley acknowledged this would be the toughest test of his career to date, as did Frazer Clarke, and so it proved over 12 exhausting rounds at London’s O2 Arena.
The 29-year-old, proudly representing his native Ipswich here, entered this 50-50 contest full of confidence after dispatching with domestic rival David Adeleye in Riyadh last October. It was another box ticked, as questions over whether he’ll ever reach the highest heights and bridge the gap to world level at heavyweight still linger.
That evening, it took him two rounds to settle against a powerful-but-raw puncher and again here the same could be said, albeit with a completely different challenge.
Clarke’s extensive amateur background, an Olympic bronze medallist in 2021, meant there were no questions over who’d better implement the boxing fundamentals from the off, but as expected this main event quickly exploded into a battle of wills.
Frazer found the target with a right early on, disguising uppercuts as Wardley whipped overhand rights in response but looked messier through three minutes.
The champion began round two fast, throwing aggressive combinations against an undeterred challenger. Uppercuts proved a persistent theme for the Burton man, piercing the high guard in close quarters before a frantic, furious exchange where both had periods of success before the bell typified the next half-hour to come.
Wardley had warmed into the fight by round three despite being naturally less refined with his entries at mid-range, though the highly-rated amateur standing across from him was visibly comfortable jabbing him at distance.
Clarke continued to connect with a pair of right-hands in the fourth and was whipping uppercuts on the inside too, body then head, while Wardley’s success came in spurts. Through four rounds, the challenger could’ve conceivably been 4-0 up on the scorecards – he was clearly doing the better point-scoring.
Those intracacies came despite Wardley’s ever-present one-punch power threat whizzing past his face. Right on cue then, Wardley landed two rights of his own early in the fifth before chaining together an uppercut, right hand combo.
How everything can change, after just one punch
For all the talk of rapid hand speed, it was the champion’s fast movements which proved key in this frame as he snuck a right hand through Clarke’s defence.
That set the table for an unanswered flurry pinning Big Fraze backwards, clearly buzzed and trying to gather his bearings, as Wardley floored him with a right.
Perhaps a potential turning point, Wardley began pawing more often with the jab in round six and you could sense the crowd were almost waiting with bated breath for a devastating knockout punch to soon follow after what they’d just seen.
Clarke finished the round with some sneaky body punching, though subtetly wasn’t exactly easy to establish as referee Steve Gray rightly lectured him about punching below the belt and soon that would be a topic of post-fight discussion.
As in the seventh, the challenger was docked a point midway through the round after again punching below the belt.
Gray said it was his third time doing so, and he’d seen enough, before the pair were slugging it out throwing haymakers in the final minute of another bruising stanza.
Clarke’s uppercuts simply couldn’t miss, his timing on them was both cruel and cunning as Wardley entered round eight for the first time as a pro.
Clarke had already gone ten rounds with one-time world title challenger Mariusz Wach last summer, though he too would soon cover new ground.
Wardley’s wild swinging attacks at Clarke were met with steady resistance after rolling across the ropes, firing back with big rights to snap his head back and Wardley looked increasingly weary but unloaded more furious combos in response.
Wardley wades through fire, and he needed to
It felt like he was in auto pilot. A bloody nose that wouldn’t ease from round two onwards, his right eye closing and spatial awareness compromised, Clarke’s right-hands continued to land flush with the challenger beginning to take over.
The doctor came into the ring to assess Wardley’s wounds midway through a back-and-forth tenth round, where the referee rushed to get Clarke’s mouthguard back in after seeing it knocked out during another wild sequence absorbing damage aplenty.
Wardley staggered forward on unsteady legs, unwilling to concede much more ground and as the bell sounded for round 11, it felt like a miracle we’d even reached this stage in a grinding tussle of attrition between heavy-handed heavyweights.
Wardley was twice warned for a pair of illegal backhand punches, they exchanged body shots and Wardley felt inclined to hold, alleviating pressure – however brief it may have felt – after eating more of those punishing uppercuts clean.
The champion rained down flurries in the final 30 seconds of another competitive round and you could sense it was finely poised, heading into the final frame.
Wardley backed Clarke up momentarily, expending energy aplenty doing so, before the challenger turned the tide back in his favour and charged forward intently.
He shot a puzzled look at the referee as Wardley escaped punishment after instinctively landing another illegal backhand, before landing another clean right with the champion managing to avoid hitting the canvas.
This fight was an advertisement not only for British boxing, but why there’s such clamour to see 50-50 battles like these before the sport’s politics veer one side away or money dictates options elsewhere are accepted instead.
A wild 12-round contest to finish March and it’ll be mightly difficult for another contest, regardless of division, to top that on British soil the rest of 2024.
Other results
Super-middleweight prospect Callum Simpson scored a fourth-round knockout win (R4, 1:10) over Dulla Mbabe, setting up a summer showdown with British champion Zak Chelli – one promoter Ben Shalom promised to happen in the Midlands.
There were impressive decision wins for English cruiserweight champion Viddal Riley and newly-crowned IBO Inter-Continental welterweight titlist Chris Kongo over ten rounds against Mikael Lawal and Florian Marku respectively, while Alen Babic returned to winning ways with a sixth-round TKO at Steve Robinson’s expense.
Light-heavyweight prospect Ben Whittaker logged a first-round knockdown and indulged in more showboating en route to a points win (78-73) over Southern Area champion Leon Willings, emerging with credit aplenty after refusing to be easy bait while landing clean on the Olympic silver medallist more than many expected.
Picture source: Lawrence Lustig / BOXXER, quotes via post-fight presser
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