Frazer Clarke: “I had a hole in my leg, I’m very lucky to be alive”

“It upset everyone, but what my family don’t understand is I ain’t like everyone else. I have a different way of thinking to everyone else,” professional heavyweight boxer Frazer Clarke tells me over Zoom, unflinchingly. The 33-year-old Olympic medallist is four weeks away from his upcoming bout with Ebenezer Tetteh in Birmingham. He’s returning to action for the first time since suffering a potentially career-ending double-fracture to his cheekbone last October, during the first round of a highly anticipated rematch with Fabio Wardley. “When it’s a fair fight, it’s all fair game. That happened to me, and I hate it, I hate that they’ve seen me go through that,” he continues. “But I’ve got this thing inside of me, this pride, this fight, and I’ve been doing this since I was eleven years old.”

Their gruelling first fight, which ended in a split-decision draw last March, captured everything that’s beautiful and inspiring about the ‘noble art’: incomprehensible bravery; flourishes of graceful skill amidst the chaos of combat; and a respect forged between two warriors, sealed with a blood-and-sweat soaked embrace when the final bell rang, and the dust settled. It was awarded ‘Contest of the Year’ by the British Boxing Board of Control. The brutal, sudden conclusion of the rematch was a visceral reminder of the risks that Frazer – who grew up in a busy family home in Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire – takes to provide for his own children.

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Huck: What’s your earliest memory of your dad?

Frazer: My dad has always been my hero, mate. I remember the summers, when he used to have his vest on and he’d show me his biceps and I used to say, “you’ve got bowling balls in your arms. That’s not real!” I remember him being in good nick physically and I remember him being a protector.

We’re very normal, working-class people. In the summer holidays my dad would be at work and then go to the pub afterwards. Me and my brother would go and meet him. We came out of the pub one day and as we were crossing the road, a car sped up towards us. As the car went past, my dad gave it an almighty boot. It sounded so loud that I thought my dad had shifted the car to the other side of the road! I was like: “Wow, that’s what my dad does.” Anyone who put us at risk, my dad would sort it out. He’s never been a troublesome guy, but he was a protector of our family. He’s a serious geezer.

Huck: Did your dad box?

Frazer: He trained and kept himself in good nick, but he wasn’t ever a registered boxer or anything. Where he grew up in Jamaica, you had to be tough. Fighting was just second nature. My brother never boxed either, but I feel like in our bloodline everyone can naturally throw hands. My dad told me stories about his dad. I just know we’re tough people. Not bullies. But staunch men who can protect themselves and their family.

Huck: You’ve already touched on it a bit there, but how would you describe your dad’s version of being a man?

Frazer: First and foremost, it’s work ethic. You can’t ever put my dad’s name and lazy in the same sentence. My dad’s a grafter, mate. He worked on the power stations. He worked away most of my childhood, my whole life actually. He only recently retired. He worked 12-hour shifts in all the big power stations, the nuclear power stations, all over England. I respected it. That work ethic is what made my dad stand out. And other than that, it was being a protector and keeping things real. If you did wrong, you’d know about it. So, you had to behave yourself, try your best in school and sport, and my dad wouldn’t have a problem with you. He just wanted us to do our best at anything we tried. To me, he was just a real man’s man. He had an aura about him. He won’t beat around the bush. My dad don’t dance if he doesn’t hear music, man, he just gives it to you as it is!

Huck: As a boxer, work ethic is the key to unlocking everything else, right?

Frazer: That’s definitely the thing I took most from him. In my chosen career, it’s needed. He’d tell me about working away, renting a caravan or a spare room in someone’s house. He was eating rice and mackerel and corned beef for his dinners. He lived a disciplined lifestyle. Nothing fancy, just a couple of pints here and there. Money was hard to come by and he had to grind for it. And that’s rubbed off on me. I’m not really one for a fancy life. I’m in a position where I can have nice stuff now, but I don’t need it. If I’m going away to train, stick me in a one-bedroom flat, so long as I’ve got me own bathroom and toilet! I always have to keep it one hundred percent humble, man. Anything we had growing up came from hard work and a lot of love.

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Huck: You had safety and you had love, which is what we all need when we’re growing up.

Frazer: I’ve got a three-year-old and an eight-year-old. They’ve got their own bedrooms. The three-year-old has got an ensuite! He doesn’t understand. When I first got my gaff, I stood in the shower, and I was just buzzing to have a shower in my yard. I’d never had a shower in the bathroom in my whole life, mate. We had one bath between the six of us.

Huck: What do you remember about walking into a boxing gym for the first time?

Frazer: I was an eleven-year-old fat kid who went in there, probably low on confidence, just wanting to make my dad proud of me. I can remember walking in, the smell, the noise, the people. I remember it like it was yesterday. There was a big heavy bag near the entrance, and a lad was smashing that. It was one of those sandbags, and it was going “boom, boom, boom” every time he hit it. There were a few old boys in there – coaches and trainers. There were young lads, good fighters. Black. White. Asian. Irish travellers. It’s mad now thinking, that was my favourite thing. I felt like I’d gone from my normal life to being around kids who all were a bit naughty and a bit game. I loved it because they were smashing the hell out of each other in sparring and then getting out the ring and shaking hands. I thought: “This is crazy!” We’d go on runs together through parks and if any of the so-called bad boys gave us any shit, they’d get filled in [taught a lesson] really quick. They were proper people who I still connect with and see to this day. People that were there the first day I walked into the gym. I fell in love with the sport and the people.

Huck: Tell me a bit about your first bout. What were you feeling?

Frazer: I was shitting myself. Newdigate ABC in Coventry was the club we were boxing against. We got an eighteen-seater minibus from the pub, The Loaf and Cheese, in Burton-on-Trent. My dad, my brother, a couple of my uncles, dads from the pub.

I was a little fat thing. We couldn’t even find a groin protector to go around my waist, so I had a little cup instead. I get there and I’ve seen this kid, and he’s got an army of brothers and cousins with him, all in their white vests. I’m thinking: “Ah, shit!” Anyway, I got in there and smoked him in about 45 seconds.

Huck: When I look back at footage of my first bout, I’m taken back to how terrified I felt just before the opening bell. And how I was putting everything into every single punch I threw.

Frazer: It’s like nothing else you can ever do in your life. It’s such an experience – such a hard thing to channel your nerves, to try and do what you’ve learnt, to be fit enough. It’s almost impossible in your first fight to look anything like a boxer. But it was the best experience of my life. I’m so glad I did it. It was the best decision I ever made.

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Huck: Boxing is a brilliant tool to help steer people away from serious violence. But even as an elite boxer, you had the horrible experience of being stabbed in 2016. How did you overcome what must’ve been a very real feeling of wanting retribution for what happened to you?

Frazer: The stabbing happened, and then the dust settled a little bit. I was so angry. My daughter was two weeks old. I was literally out celebrating that. I got one in the neck and two in the leg. I’m very lucky to be alive. I was 25, but not really mature. So, I’m thinking: “You know what? When I see these guys again, it’s on.” And I went to where I knew I’d bump into them. I remember seeing one of them. I wasn’t looking to wet him up [stab him]. I just wanted to fight him, knuckle to knuckle. I swear to God, I got to him. I said, “it’s on.” He said to me: “I’m just telling you now, big man, we ain’t fighting with fists. If it’s on, then I’m gonna fucking shank you again.” I probably got called a pussy about this. But I said: “You know what? Allow it, fuck that. You win, man.” And I walked off. I probably got laughed at for it. The only way they were gonna get one over on me was to shank me, so I’ll take that loss. It takes a lot to lose like that, you know?

Huck: That’s exactly the kind of story young people need to hear, because how many lives have been lost because of ego and pride.

Frazer: Facts, bro. I’ve been around loads of these old men who were mad in their younger days. One of my friend’s dads said to me: “Yo, you’re a big lad. You think you’re hard?” I said: “Well, ask everyone else. They seem to think so.” He said: “Nah, you see that over there?” And he pointed to the curb: “That’s fucking hard. You lot are soft.” If someone pulls a shank on you, and you stand there and firm it, you’re a dickhead, mate. If someone pulls a wetter out on you, get out of there because you can’t win. Live to fight another day.

Huck: How important was being able to channel those big feelings you felt after the stabbing into boxing?

Frazer: At the time, I was on Team GB, on the elites. So, I was having to pull out of tournaments and training camps in America because I couldn’t move. I had a hole in my leg. My coach at the time was Rob McCracken. I had to go to the gym, and I was embarrassed because what happened had got back to him. I said: “It couldn’t have been avoided, man.” One of them punched me so I punched him back. He said: “It could’ve been avoided. The places you go determine the outcomes.” I keep that advice in my mind now.

These coaches, for some of them it’s a job, but some of them are just volunteers. And they want to see other people’s lives improve so they try to guide you. It’s special. It takes a lot to do that. They deserve medals of honour, man. If I didn’t meet my first trainer, Richard Joyce, my life would be very different. The imprint he’s had on my life is crazy. If I didn’t meet these people, it would be a different story. We wouldn’t be where we are, we wouldn’t be having this chat.

Huck: What impact has being a dad had on the way you approach boxing?

Frazer: I have their pictures around me when I’m training. They’ve been the driving force. My career has only gotten better since having my kids. It’s a different motivation. You get more serious. You want the best for their future, and you know you have to work harder and be smarter. My little boy came along just before the Olympics. I owe that Olympic medal to my daughter and my son because him being born was the extra push I needed after being in the GB system for a long time. I was probably a bit stale, but I thought: “Fuck this. I’m willing to give everything in this ring.” I knew it was gonna change our lives.

When you’re throwing hands, you forget sometimes. But if I’m in the corner during a fight and need reminding why I’m doing this, I only have to say my daughter's name, my son’s name, and that’s it, I’ll punch through a brick wall.

Robert Kazandjian is Huck’s Hard Feeling columnist and a freelance writer. Follow him on Instagram.

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