“I can feel it in my blood. I can feel it in my bones.”
“I can’t wait to hit something.” Frazer Clarke loves this. Given the extremes each Clarke and Fabio Wardley drove themselves to of their first combat, both may very well be forgiven for baulking from pitching themselves proper again at one another.
However Wardley and Clarke aren’t wired that method. After preventing over 12 rounds to a digital standstill in March and an incredible cut up draw, they’ve a ferocious willpower to go once more and eventually discover a winner.
For Clarke there has by no means been a query that this second combat, for all of the brutality of the primary, was precisely what he wished.
“Boxing for me is not a thing that I think, it’s not a thing that I do, it’s a thing that I feel,” he advised Sky Sports activities.
“It is so engrained in me. I really like the game. I really like the sporting aspect of two males getting within the ring and making an attempt to outperform one another.
“I care about me going in there and coming out crowned new British champion with a big smile on my face and being proud of myself, the work I’ve put in over the years and doing myself justice.”
He believes that units him aside from his rival.
“I’m not sure he has the same passion for boxing as me,” Clarke stated of Wardley. “I think he has a passion for being popular and fame and having a few quid in his pocket.
“Strip me away, take the whole lot from me, you will by no means take the love I’ve for this sport away from me. I am undecided he is the identical individual.
“He loves the sport but it’s because it’s the sport that he’s good at. It’s a job for him. For me, it’s a cliche to say that, but it’s so much more than that.
“That is my life, that is what I dwell, that is what I breathe. It is what I really like.
“Me and him, I think we’re different people.”
Each although refused to yield of their epic first combat. In his white-collar boxing previous, in his professional profession, Wardley has by no means skilled a loss.
“I’m still undefeated across the board,” he advised Sky Sports activities. “I still haven’t taken a hard loss and I think if anything out of that draw it gave me so much more admiration, respect, plaudits within boxing to do 12 rounds like that.
“I am a competitor via and thru and I need to win. I need to get the ‘W’, however that combat did my credit score no hurt both.”
In Clarke’s lengthy and extremely profitable newbie profession, he has naturally taken defeats alongside the best way. Wardley believes his opponent is aware of methods to lose, in a method he doesn’t.
“When you start to lose and lose fights, you see the signs, in the middle of a fight, you start almost getting flashbacks, ‘this is where it went wrong the other time I lost’… It starts to play on your mind. I’ve always questioned how mentally strong Frazer Clarke is. I know how much the outside world can affect him,” Wardley stated.
“His own brain can get at him as well. I don’t have quit in me. I might take a little five-second breather and step off for a sec but as soon as I step back in it’s straight back to war. Because I don’t know how to stop.
“I do not know methods to stop and which may be to my very own detriment in the future. However in the end that is my preventing fashion, that is how I am going about issues and the way I am going to proceed to go about issues.”
His prediction: “Rather less blood and much more struggle.
“At least on my part.”
Glove dispute
The 2 heavyweights have a fierce rivalry and that spilled over when their respective groups argued over the gloves the day earlier than the combat.
Michael Ofo, from Wardley’s administration group, advised Sky Sports activities: “I was happy with our gloves, I was happy with their gloves. I left the room [of the meeting]. Something just said to me, go back in the room, I don’t know why I did, I went back in and they had our gloves out with the British Board and they were complaining about the gloves.
“They should not be touching our gloves with out us current.
“The British board told them there’s nothing wrong with the gloves, the gloves are perfectly fine… Both teams were just going back and forth.”
Angel Fernandez, Clarke’s coach, stated: “We felt like the gloves didn’t have enough padding. But it’s no biggie, I don’t know why they’re making a fuss about it. It’s not them fighting.”
Energy or tempo?
Wardley shaved off some weight for this second combat, whereas Clarke did weigh in heavier than first time round.
That has been questioned. Former world champion Johnny Nelson stated: “It does surprise me.
“Are you pondering I’ll put extra weight on so I’ve acquired extra energy in my punch so I’ve acquired extra to push ahead and lean on you? I do not know.
“If I was working with Frazer on this, I’d work on pace, a consistent pace to work at and step it up. You know what you’ve got to improve on, you’ve got the intelligence to adapt to it.
“For Fabio, he now is aware of that he can work at a heavy tempo for 12 rounds and he is aware of he can harm Frazer Clarke. Whereas Frazer, I am simply stunned he is put the load on. I do not get the strategy behind the insanity however he’ll most likely inform us after the combat.”
Nonetheless, the weigh-in in Riyadh on Friday was at a later time of day than it was for the primary encounter in March so shouldn’t be an actual equal.
Clarke, by all accounts, has taken himself to new ranges in his coaching camp for this combat.
“It’s designed to make you better but it’s also designed to break you,” he advised Sky Sports activities. “It’s all geared to one thing and that is to execute a plan and a performance come fight night.
“It is fairly wonderful the belongings you study your self and the belongings you study life throughout boxing camp.”
That combined with his determination to change the outcome of the first fight, leaves him totally determined.
“I used to be devastated [at the draw]. As a result of I am a winner. I am not right here to participate,” Clarke said.
“We’ve got the possibility to make the whole lot proper and I am going to try this.
“It’s almost sad, but I am what I am and the sport has made me what I am today and just like everyone in this room, everyone that’s going to come and watch, the passion I have for this sport I can’t really put it into words.
“I am able to go do a job.”
Fabio Wardley’s enormous rematch with Frazer Clarke is on the epic Artur Beterbiev vs Dmitry Bivol invoice on Saturday October 12 dwell on Sky Sports activities Field Workplace. Guide Wardley vs Clarke 2 and Beterbiev vs Bivol now!