Now is the time for Frazer Clarke to turn a promising start into a substantial heavyweight career. To achieve that there are some fundamental steps he must take.
He apologised to fans at the York Hall last week for a sluggish victory over Mariusz Wach. He was being a bit harsh on himself there.
Wach is the size of a house. You could beat up on him all day and he wouldn’t move. It was steaming hot in a Victorian arena that is not fit for purpose when temperatures are as high as that. Caroline Dubois also struggled. We had to tell her to pace herself to conserve energy for the right moment. It is no point emptying the tank, leaving yourself exposed.
I like Clarke, but he has to concentrate on punching harder and sitting down on his shots instead of just placing punches.
He is an Olympic bronze medallist. He’s got the tools, quick hands, but he needs to work on power, or more accurately, explosiveness.
Clarke dipped Wach’s knees a few times with a right hook and hit him hard to the body, but he needed to do that again and again. He is afraid to let the punches go on in case he runs out of gas.
The solution is to do loads of interval work on the pads and on the bag, bite down on the gum shield and really go for it. It's exhausting but it pays off in fights like these.
That Olympic bronze shows that he can mix it with the best in the world. There is a difference, however, between mixing with them and beating them.
Professional boxing is all about entertainment. You have to be able to inject pace and take guys out even when you're flagging.
He's got to bend his knees a bit more, learn to roll under punches and put combinations together. Instead of two-punch salvos he has to put five together, then get quickly back into position with the weight on the right leg.
Using better sparring partners would improve his combinations no end and get him turning his weight over properly when he punches.
There are no short cuts I’m afraid. It’s almost two years since the Olympics in Tokyo. This was his seventh pro fight, his first ten-rounder.
Clarke turns 32 in August, which ought to be all the encouragement he needs to put his foot down and make the most of that Olympic legacy.
Follow Barry on Twitter at @ClonesCyclone @mcguigans_gym
