Highlights
–Doubling and tripling his jab, Nathan Cleverly found success early against Andrzej Fonfara by controlling the range and landing clean, crisp shots.
–In Round 4, Fonfara began to swing the momentum in his direction as he savaged Cleverly with a flurry of combos in the center of the ring, and the action never relented from there.
–With a record-setting number of punches thrown and landed in an instant classic, Fonfara broke Cleverly’s nose and landed the more punishing shots as he won a unanimous decision.
Records were broken, a nose was broken, but the will to win from these two lay-it-all-on-the-line warriors was never imperiled as Andrzej Fonfara and Nathan Cleverly dueled relentlessly in an instant-classic slugfest where the only head movement came from necks snapping back after absorbing one power shot after another.
Doubling and tripling up on his jab, Cleverly controlled the range in the first three rounds, landing at will. But it wasn’t enough to keep the hard-charging Fonfara off him for long.
Fighting before an adoring crowd in his adopted hometown of Chicago, Fonfara began to put his stamp on the fight in Round 4, when he blitzed Cleverly early with a flurry of combos.
From there, the action only intensified, as Cleverly and Fonfara stood toe-to-toe and blasted away at each tirelessly the whole fight.
They smashed each other’s faces and a number of CompuBox records for the 175-pound division alike, setting the mark for most combined punches landed (936) and most combined punches thrown (2,524).
Cleverly landed a record-setting 474 shots and peppered Fonfara with eight straight punches at one point in Round 9.
Ultimately, it was Fonfara who landed the harder shots, busting Cleverly’s nose midway through the fight and rocking him repeatedly with savage left hooks.
It was enough for Fonfara to earn a tight unanimous decision (115-113, 116-112 twice) in a candidate for fight of the year.
Andrzej Fonfara works inside during his record-setting 175-pound win over Nathan Cleverly in Chicago. (David Earnisse/Premier Boxing Champions)
