Nathan Cleverly says he would like to box in the United States again despite suffering a broken nose during his points defeat to Andrzej Fonfara in the early hours of Saturday.
The former WBO light-heavyweight champion had hoped that victory in Chicago would be a shortcut back to the top of the division. But Cleverly, standing toe to toe with the harder punching Pole, ended up bloodied and bruised at the end of 12 hard rounds, as he lost a unanimous points decision.
Cleverly’s career had stalled since he lost his world title to Sergey Kovalev in four one-sided rounds in 2013. He decided to move up to cruiserweight after that, but never seemed big enough for the division and lost a rematch to Tony Bellew.
At times against Fonfara, Cleverly, 28, seemed back to near his best, but he neglected his boxing in favour of standing close and at times seemed too easy to hit.
In total there were 936 punches landed and 2,524 thrown by the two boxers, the highest number recorded in a light-heavyweight bout by CompuBox, which does punch counts for all leading contests in the US.
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“It was a fantastic fight,” Cleverly said. “I had a feeling that our styles were going to gel and that’s what happened. It was a war from the very first bell and I am not surprised that it broke the records for the most punches thrown because when we started we just didn’t stop.”
The 28-year-old Welshman began well and had the edge on Fonfara for speed. A close-quarters fight favoured the Chicago-based Pole, though, and Fonfara’s heavy shots had a big impact in the seventh round, as Cleverly suffered a broken nose.
From then on, the Welshman kept battling through obvious pain and with a face masked in blood, as he also suffered a cut inside his mouth, but Fonfara landed the better shots late on to take the decision on the judges’ scorecards by 116-112 (twice) and 115-113.
“He can really bang - he’s not far off Sergey Kovalev for power,” Cleverly said. “But I thought I had him until the nose went and I think that without that, I could have got the win. In the end, I think the 115-113 was about right, and credit to him, he took some punches in there, too, and kept on coming.
“It has been a great experience over here in the US. It’s a pretty hostile crowd but they all congratulated me after the fight. Would I do it again? Why not? It’s what we are here to do - put on entertaining fights for great fans - and I am sure there will be the demand for it.”