Fans have heard the term, “he punched like he had bricks in his gloves!” The great Sugar Ray Leonard said this is how it felt after he had been 15 astonishing rounds with fellow great Roberto Duran in their first epic fight from 1980. And now, British heavyweight Fabio Wardley inflicted, according to a British Boxing Board of Control doctor who attended to Wardley’s first-round KO victim Frazer Clarke, an injury on Clarke’s head that is “typically caused by bricks.”
The doctor in question, Neil Scott, spoke to Sky Sports, and he said he has never seen an injury from a gloved fist as severe as the one Clarke suffered on Saturday night in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
“I’m a maxillofacial surgeon in the NHS and, typically, those kind of injuries are caused by bricks,” Scott said when speaking about the gruesome head injury Clarke suffered. “With the size of the glove it’s not something we see in boxing. It must be a tremendous amount of power to do that.”
It just goes to show how hard Wardley hits, and at 18-0-1(17) Wardley has shown us all how formidable he is, and the 29 year old now looks to engage in bigger fights. Thankfully, Clarke has undergone surgery and he is said to be “feeling well.”
Ben Shalom, who promotes “Big Fraze,” also spoke with Sky Sports.
“Frazer successfully underwent minor surgery,” Shalom said. “He’s feeling well and rested and will head back to the UK to further recover with his family.”
It is understood that Clarke will take between six to eight weeks to recover from the punch, or punches, he was hit with in that opening round on Saturday. At this stage, it’s impossible to know with any certainty whether or not Clarke’s career will be able to recover. That was indeed a nasty KO loss, the kind that can ruin a good fighter.
The first fight between Wardley and Clarke, back in March, was a real war, a 12 round war that ended up as a draw. The result in the return fight showed us all how improved Fabio Wardley is as a fighter. Can Wardley go all the way and become a world champion? That raw punching power will see to it that Wardley has a chance against just about anybody he fights.
