By Jim Dower: Commonwealth (British Empire) light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (15-0, 5 KOs) destroyed his hard-hitting Kenyan challenger Samson Onyango (18-4, 12 KOs) in the 1st round of a scheduled 12-round bout tonight at the Oasis Leisure Centre, Swindon, in Wiltshire. Cleverly, 21, hurt Onyango with several hard hooks to the body in the 1st, backing him up to the corner.
Once he had him there, Cleverly landed a left to his body, buckling Onyango over in pain, and then hammering Onyango with two hard right hands to the right side of his body, causing him to go down in pain. Referee Mark Green stepped in and counted Onyango out at 2:15 of the 1st round.
Making only his 2nd defense of his > Commonwealth (British Empire) light heavyweight title, Cleverly started off the fight with a couple of light jabs to the head of Onyango. However, Onyango had other ideas, launching a huge right hand to the head of Cleverly and landing.
Cleverly answered back with a fight hand and was fired back on by Onyango with another huge right hand. Onyango showed immediately that he was the bigger puncher and had the faster hands by far. Cleverly, who doesn’t have much power to speak of when throwing to the head, aimed his shots at the body of Onyango, tagging him with several nice body shots.
Cleverly, noticing that Onyango seemed to wince in pain after taking a hard body shot, kept up the pace adding more hard hooks to the midsection. Onyango fired back with a couple of hard right hands, but it didn’t faze Cleverly or slow him down. Cleverly continued throwing hard shots to Onyango‘s body, while occasionally getting hit with a big right hand from him.
Cleverly then fired back with several more hard body shots, sending Onyango backwards to the ropes. Seeing that Onyango was now badly hurt, Cleverly then landed one more big left to Onyango’s midsection, following it with two right hands to his rib cage, sending the Kenyan down to the canvas.
The referee stepped in at that point and stopped the fight at 2:15 of the round. After being counted out, Onyango slowly climbed up off the canvas, still clutching his right side of his midsection in pain for a brief time as he walked around the ring.
“I’m not surprised. I expected myself to stop this guy this time, whereas before I was content to look to win on points,” Cleverly said later. “I’m at my optimal weight and my strength is increasing. Once I hit him with a body shot, he [Onyango] didn’t like it, so I thought I’d repeat the shot and he went down. He launched a big right hand at the start of the fight, trying to rattle me a bit. It was no problem. I just think it was a good shot for me, really. I want to establish myself as the best light heavyweight in Great Britain, and I’m prepared to fight any, you know that. In 18 months, I want to be in position to be fighting for the world honors.”