Clarke faces a tough choice after brutal KO by Wardley

As the camera lingered on a malformed face, the eeriest realisation crept in: we weren’t looking at Frazer Clarke – not really.

- ALEX PATTLE

It’s in the eyes, see, and no one was there. The British heavyweight, who had never before been beaten, was now the definition of that word. Inches below those hollow eyes, Clarke’s jaw was freakishly askew, and most sickening of all was the literal dent in the side of his head. The 33-year-old looked like a zombie mid-transformation, or a glitching video-game character.

The desensitisation we feel, the more we watch combat sports, is an admittedly concerning part of the human condition, but this was a knockout to shock even the most hardened viewers. Seven months after Clarke and Fabio Wardley produced a fight of the year contender, a draw that kept the British heavyweight title on the latter’s shoulder, fans had anticipated another draining, bloody duel. But Saturday’s rematch in Riyadh was a different kind of gruesome.