'If a ref stopped me over a bit of blood. I'd be gutted'

After battling Fabio Wardley to a draw in an instant classic, British heavyweight Frazer Clarke talks to Alex Pattle about their October rematch and proving himself on the big stage

- Alex Pattle

Frazer Clark is adamant. His blood-spattered classic with Fabio Wardley was just a fight. Nothing more, nothing less. Journalists might opt for words like “war” and “hell”, but in his mind that would be to romanticise it, to exaggerate the drama of the moment.

“This is no disrespect,” he tells The Independent, the day after his rematch with Wardley is confirmed for 12 October. “I think journalists and people that have never boxed can cling to what others have said in the past. I know myself, and it was a hard fight, but I went on a nice couple of holidays after, had some rest, I’ve been training again; I’m as good as new. But it might be so alien to some people, to go through that.”

In this specific answer, he is dismissing the suggestion that a fight like his first with Wardley – a split-decision draw at London’s O2 in March – can change a boxer. “I understand that it’d take its toll, if you’d been in fight after fight after fight like that,” says the unbeaten heavyweight. “But in essence, that was my first ‘proper’ fight. I think that was the first time in a professional fight that I’d actually been hit flush!