Once upon a time, Frazer Clarke was paid to break up fights rather than engage in them.
Clarke, who challenges Fabio Wardley for the British heavyweight title in a rematch on the Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol card on Saturday in Riyad, Saudi Arabia, worked as a security guard at boxing events to make ends meet when he was an elite amateur boxer.
“I was a teenage lad at the time and I was boxing for Team GB as an amateur, trying to get to the Olympics, and I needed to make a few bucks,” Clarke told ESPN. “It helped me stay out of trouble on the weekends. I worked often [Anthony] Joshua fights early in the fight and then in large fights like the ones he had against Dillian Whyte and Wladimir Klitschko. I was involved in both Carl Froch and George Groves fights, as well as other fights with fighters such as Kell Brook, Nathan Cleverly and Tony Bellew.”
Clarke (8-0-1, 6 KO), who turned professional in February 2022, said he attended press conferences, weigh-ins and fight nights, and in addition to the paycheck, he enjoyed being around fighters and learning the business.
“It was a strange situation with AJ because at the time I was running with him, working with him in the gym, sparring with him and even staying in the same place as him in Sheffield, but when it came to the fight tonight I was there the rope side works,” Clarke said.
At the end of the first round during the Joshua-Whyte fight in 2015, Joshua landed a left hook just after the bell. Whyte responded by throwing a left hand at referee Howard Foster to hit Joshua and then again as Foster was pushing Joshua into the corner. Clifton Mitchell, a former heavyweight and head of security at Wembley, entered the ring with Clark to separate the fighters and prevent the fight from escalating.
“Their teams came into the ring like crazy at the end of the first round and I was in the ring trying to stop it,” Clarke said. “I saw what was happening, it was getting close to the referee’s decision and I didn’t want a good fight to be stopped because of anything that happened after the bell, so I tried to get everyone out of the ring.”
Clarke became involved in security work through Mitchell after seeing him at a tiny boxing show.
“It was around 2011, 2012,” Clarke said. “He probably heard that I was getting up to mischief on the weekends and instead of waving my arms in nightclubs, he said why don’t you come over and work on boxing.
“Fight nights became a second home to me. I know the routines, I know the large arenas, I know what the fans are like and I know what to expect from large shows now. It’s normal for me.”
Clarke, 33, from Burton-on-Trent, stopped working in security in 2018 as he came closer to representing Great Britain at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which he eventually did and won a bronze medal in the super heavyweight division .
But Clarke’s Olympic dream was also almost knocked out in 2016 when he was stabbed.
“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time in my local town, maybe doing things that I shouldn’t be doing as an elite athlete, and I got off track for a while,” Clarke told ESPN in 2021.
“I was drunk, got into an argument and during the fight I was stabbed three times, once in the neck and twice in the leg. I had a two-week-old daughter at the time, so it was a really scary time for me and my family and I remember thinking, “Am I going to be here to raise my daughter?”
After turning professional, Clarke won his first eight fights, including six by stoppage. In March, Clarke’s first real test came against Wardley. In a thunderous fight, Clarke recovered from a knockdown in round 5, but notably lost a point for a low blow in round 7. Clarke was disappointed with the draw verdict (115-113, 113-114 and 113-113).
“The draw was complex to accept, but it’s part of learning and there’s something to build on. I know there are things I can do differently,” Clarke said. “One is not to get dropped like I did in Round 5, and the other is not to throw low blows.”
Clarke has sparred hundreds of rounds with Joshua, as well as fighters such as top heavyweight title challenger Richard Torrez and IBF heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois, who knocked out Joshua last month.
“He said he was going to throw large punches, so we’ll see if he does [Wardley] it does,” Clarke said. “I had a lot of different people at the gym I worked with and I had a couple of good rounds with Daniel Dubois before he fought AJ,” Clarke said. “[Wardley has] I told you he was going to throw some weighty punches, so we’ll see if he does.”
Wardley also had a career before becoming a professional boxer. Unlike Clarke, Wardley did not have a long and distinguished amateur career and entered the sport as a white collar boxer.
Wardley (17-0-1, 16 KO), 29, from Ipswich, worked as a recruitment consultant in the health and social care sector until he stopped focusing on his professional boxing career less than a decade ago. After four fights as an amateur, Wardley turned professional in 2017. Since then, he has been sparring, among others: with Whyte and current unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk. Whyte was a major influence on Wardley’s career, which saw him achieve success with no amateur experience. He has knocked out top fighters such as Eric Molina, Nathan Gorman and David Adeleye and will enter the ring against Clarke as the defending British heavyweight champion.
“If you want to do it a little differently, you can – as long as you are committed – train demanding and do everything right as you can to succeed in the sport.” Wardley told Sky Sports in April.
“You have to push yourself a little bit, you have to graft and work harder than the rest, put your head down and fight, but you can do it.”
They both believe that a good performance on the large stage in Saudi Arabia will change their careers.
“I only gained experience away from the top players. I want to get some experience over 12 rounds and then I’ll be ready,” Clarke said.
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