Hearn: Cleverly’s broken nose confirmed

By Boxing News - 10/17/2015 - Comments

KB7A9156(Photo credit: David Earnisse/Premier Boxing Champions) By Scott Gilfoid: Nathan Cleverly’s promoter Eddie Hearn has confirmed that Cleverly, 28, suffered a broken nose last night in his disappointing 12 round unanimous decision loss to the talented/hard hitting Andrzej Fonfara (28-3, 16 KOs) in their clash at the UIC Pavilion in Chicago, Illinois.

Despite Cleverly losing the fight and getting his nose broken, this was one of those exciting fights of the year due to the back and forth action that went on for 12 rounds. Even in the final round, the battered and bloody Cleverly continued to battle hard to try and get the victory. But as I predicted, Fonfara was just too strong, too power and too talented for Cleverly to handle.

Besides the broken nose, Cleverly also needed blood to be drained from one of his ears. It’s unclear if Fonfara punctured Cleverly’s eardrum with one of his powerful shots, but it’s definitely possible.

“Left hospital in early hours – confirmed broken nose and had to have his ear drained of blood #warrior,” Hearn said on his Twitter.

Cleverly’s nose was broken in the 7th after Fonfara tagged him with a textbook right uppercut to the nose. It was one of those bone-crunching shots that make it difficult for a fighter to come back from. Cleverly’s nose swelled up immediately, giving him the appearance of a lion. It reminded me a lot of how heavyweight Chris Arreola suffered a broken nose in his first defeat to Bermane Stiverne. In this case, Arreola’s nose was shattered. We don’t know the extent of Cleverly’s broken nose, but from looking at it last night, it didn’t look good.
Cleverly fought well enough to win 3 of the first 4 rounds on my scorecard.

I thought for a second there that Fonfara was over-matched because Cleverly looked like the fighter that he used to be four years ago. But unfortunately for Cleverly, his energy disappeared halfway through the 5th round, and this enabled Fonfara to come back and dominate the remaining rounds of the fight to get the decision by the scores of 115-113, 116-112, and 116-112. As you can see, the fight was very winnable for Cleverly if he hadn’t gassed out in the 5th. I don’t know what happened with him.

At one point, Cleverly was showboating and clowning Fonfara in the 5th round, but then in the next second he looked totally weary in the 2nd half of that round. Instead of getting his second wind in the remaining seven rounds of the fight, Cleverly stayed tired and gave away a lot of crucial rounds. In hindsight, It think it was a mistake on Cleverly’s part for him to throw so many punches in the 5th. He really went overboard and seemed to exhaust himself. It was a stupid thing to do because he needed to conserve energy, fight a little on the outside, and focus on fighting smart.

The broken nose will obviously keep Cleverly on the shelf for a while. We also don’t know how long his earn will give him problems.



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