Nathan Cleverly vs Badou Jack

Nathan Cleverly’s second reign as a world light-heavyweight champion came to an abrupt end at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on 26 August 2017 when Badou Jack stopped him in the fifth round to take the WBA title. Cleverly entered at 30-3, weighed 174 pounds and was making his first defence since defeating Juergen Braehmer in Germany the previous October. Jack, 21-1-2, weighed the light-heavyweight limit of 175 pounds and was moving up from super-middleweight, where he had held the WBC championship. The contest formed part of the Floyd Mayweather Jr-Conor McGregor promotion and was refereed by Tony Weeks.

Jack began in controlled fashion and was immediately the more accurate of the two. Cleverly attempted to use his height and customary work rate, but Jack was able to move inside without taking much in return and consistently beat the Welshman to the punch. The official scorecards show that all three judges gave each of the first four rounds to Jack. Patricia Morse Jarman, Max DeLuca and Don Trella were unanimous at 40-36 when the fifth began. Cleverly was therefore already in a serious deficit before the damage became decisive.

The pattern became increasingly uncomfortable for Cleverly in the middle rounds. Jack was stronger at close quarters, and his punches were landing with greater authority. In the fourth he began to hurt the champion noticeably, opening up his attack with hard combinations and bloodying Cleverly’s nose. A left hook followed a forceful right hand to the side of the head, and Cleverly’s defence was beginning to break down under the sustained pressure. He remained willing and attempted to answer, but he was no longer able to control the range or make Jack pay for moving forward.

Jack carried the same pressure into the fifth and gave Cleverly little opportunity to recover. He opened the round with combinations to the head and continued to drive the champion towards the ropes. Cleverly’s face was reddened, and his movements had become increasingly defensive. He tried to duck and roll beneath the punches, but too many were still getting through. Jack’s greater physical strength at the new weight was now evident, and the former super-middleweight champion was punching with the confidence of a man who knew the finish was close.

The decisive sequence came late in the round. Jack landed a sweeping right hand that forced Cleverly back into the ropes, then followed up with two right uppercuts as the Welshman struggled to protect himself. Further punches came without an effective reply, and Weeks moved between the fighters to stop the contest at 2 minutes 47 seconds of the fifth round. There had been no knockdown, but Cleverly was taking clean, unanswered blows and was in no condition to reverse the situation. Jack became a world champion in a second weight division in his first appearance at 175 pounds.

The defeat was especially disappointing for Cleverly because his victory over Braehmer had restored him to world-title status after several difficult years. He had first held the WBO light-heavyweight championship from 2011 until Sergey Kovalev stopped him in four rounds in Cardiff in 2013. A move to cruiserweight followed, including two fights with Tony Bellew, before Cleverly returned to light-heavyweight. He later lost a gruelling decision to Andrzej Fonfara but revived his career by forcing Braehmer to retire after six rounds in October 2016. The Jack contest therefore represented an opportunity to establish a second championship reign rather than merely reclaim a belt.

Jack, by contrast, had arrived in Las Vegas after a frustrating sequence of close decisions at super-middleweight. His previous four contests had produced two majority draws, a split-decision victory and a majority-decision victory, including a draw with James DeGale in a unification fight in January 2017. Against Cleverly, he removed any possibility of another disputed verdict. He controlled every completed round and steadily increased the pressure until the referee had no reasonable alternative but to intervene. Jack later said that he had learned not to leave matters to the judges, and his performance reflected that attitude.

For Cleverly, the loss proved final. The following day he announced his retirement from boxing at the age of 30, saying that there were “a few too many miles on the clock.” He left the sport as a two-time world champion, having also held British, Commonwealth and European honours during a career that began in 2005. Jack did not retain the WBA title for long, vacating it shortly afterwards, but the Las Vegas victory remained one of the clearest and most authoritative performances of his career. Cleverly had been beaten not by a single sudden blow but by an accumulation of accurate, increasingly heavy punches from a fighter who was stronger, sharper and in command from the opening bell.

I thought this was one of Badou Jack’s best performances. Nathan Cleverly was a genuine world-level fighter, experienced, fit and usually capable of making people work every minute, but Jack never let him settle. He was stronger, more accurate and much more spiteful with his punches.

What stood out to me was how Jack closed the distance. Cleverly liked room to get his long shots going, but Jack kept getting inside that range and making him fight at a pace he didn’t want. By the fourth, Cleverly was already being broken down, his nose bloodied and his defence starting to come apart. All three judges had Jack 40-36 up after four.

The fifth was just a beating. Jack landed hard combinations, trapped Cleverly on the ropes and finished the job at 2:47.

I had no problem with the stoppage. Cleverly was brave, but bravery only gets you so far when the other man is landing clean, and you’ve stopped answering properly. Jack looked absolutely at home at light-heavyweight that night.