THE NEXT JOSHUA?
Frazer Clarke has a tradition of excellence to uphold, writes
Meet the one and only Frazer Clarke
SINCE the year 2000, every Olympic Games bar one has seen a British fighter take a place on the super-heavyweight medal-winners podium. In two of the last five Olympics, a Briton has won the 91&kgs gold medal, plus Joe Joyce was unlucky just to get silver last year, and David Price won an impressive bronze in 2008. But will Britain’s super-heavyweight medal factory be able to keep on churning out winners?
Frazer Clarke, an understudy first for Anthony Joshua then for Joyce, is the man determined to carry on this tradition of excellence. Clarke has already beaten Olympians, though he has never been to an Olympics himself. He hasn’t had the chance yet to compete in the major tournaments. This is the year when Frazer will finally make his move.
“I’ve always been developing. I think I’m ready now to go to the World championships, the European championships, these majors. They’re two majors which I’ve always wanted to go to, because I’ve always felt capable and I’ve beaten a lot of guys that have gone to them and done well. Now I’m really ready,” he told Boxing News. “Now’s the time when I’ll come into my own.”
After a training camp at altitude in Colorado, he chalked up his first victory of the year in the World Series of Boxing in Paris last month. He would have loved the chance to fight Tony Yoka, the Frenchman who denied Joyce Olympic gold and has since turned professional. “The way he smiled and the way he goaded Joe in that last round, when he didn’t win the bout,” Frazer said. “He was doing an Ali shuffle in the last round. In that last round I would have been going to try and beat Joe because, especially in the second and third, I was getting beat up. I’d love to wipe the smile off his face.”
Having rivals drives boxers on to greater heights. It helped both Joyce and Clarke as fighters as they were vying against one another for Olympic selection. For the upcoming cycle, Frazer now, however, finds himself as the only super-heavyweight on the GB Podium or elite squad, after Daniel Dubois turned professional. “The competition was great because I’ll be the first to admit that I was worried. Daniel, he’s a proper talent,” Clarke said. “It is a real shame because he was a great talent. He’s very young, very young-minded... Just look at Anthony Joshua, when he first come here, he was quite terrible. He thought he was Mike Tyson and then over time he learned to box long and straight. He became Olympic champion. I’d say Daniel’s more advanced now than Joshua was when he came here, but I just feel like there’s so much more for him to gain. Not even boxing, he would have grown here as a person by being round the lads, round the coaches, travelling the world, it doesn’t just grow you as a boxer, it grows you as a human being. You have to speak to people. You go to different countries, you have to speak to people who don’t speak your language. It just changes you completely.”
He may not have an obvious challenger, but Clarke does not lack for drive. “It was a weird time,” Frazer mused. “I still didn’t feel as motivated as I should feel. Then big Dan left and I don’t know what it did but him leaving sort of made me feel a responsibility to step up now. You’re the only superheavyweight here. It’s time to go to the next level. I really want to make my daughter proud. I want to give her the best life I can give her. She means everything to me.
“I want her to be proud of me.”
He added, “I’m not for one second thinking that there won’t be no competition, because there is always someone who’ll come from somewhere looking to get on this squad. With there being no one else up here at super-heavyweight, I think if they do come on and impress a bit, they’ll be moved quite quickly. There’s always competition. Somewhere in England there’s someone who’s going to go into the Elite championships next year, do well and they’ll get their opportunity to come on here.”
Clarke has also had the perfect sparring partners, training with IBF heavyweight champion and Olympic 2012 gold medallist Joshua, and Olympic 2016 silver medal-winner Joyce. “As a three we’re quite close, not just as sparring partners, but as friends. We all get on. We all talk and I think we’ve come to the conclusion that me, Joe and Josh, we’re always going to stay in contact because we’re always going to need each other and use each other until it gets to the stage where maybe one day we have to fight each other. But until then we help each other build. We help each other get to where we need to be. I owe them two the world. Because without Joe and without Josh I’m not half the fighter I am now. They really do push me to the limit every single day in training. There’s never an easy session,” he said.
“I think if we do [fight], you guys are in for a treat. I think the public are in for a treat because, no disrespect to anyone boxing now but there will be no better fight than Frazer Clarke and Joe Joyce, and Joe Joyce and Anthony Joshua, and Frazer Clarke and Anthony Joshua. Them fights there, they are proper heavyweights, athletic, good boxing, strong heavyweights that know the game. Not in a hugging match, not in a farce. Everyone’s hungry and all three of us want to be the best in the world eventually. I’m speaking a long way down the line. But why can’t it happen? The best fighting the best.”