CARSON, Calif. – The cruiserweight clash between Cheavon Clarke and Efetobor Apochi on Saturday at Dignity Health Sports Park started tactically but finished with a furious slugfest.
It was Clarke who survived the tough test and hard-fought tussle in the eyes of the judges via majority decision by scores 98-92 and 97-93. A third judge had it 95-95.
Clarke (10-0, 7 KOs), a 33-year-old born in Montego Bay, Jamaica, and a 2020 Olympian for Great Britain, was making his United States debut, and barely banked some of the early rounds to earn the victory.
Apochi (12-3, 12 KOs) was the busier fighter, connecting with harder shots and landing 139 of 599 punches overall in the 10-round fight. Clarke countered by landing 135 of his 465 shots. Clarke landed 47 percent of his power punches overall, including 36 more body shots.
After a somewhat calculated start, the fight ended in a flurry, as the immensely active Apochi, a 36-year-old from Nigeria, was a game contender who never faded, winning late rounds by backing up Clarke with crisp uppercuts and crushing rights.
Clarke connected with a big pair of punishing left and right hooks that had Apochi reeling in the eighth, but Apochi showcased astronomical heart as he withstood the beating. By the end of the round, a gassed Clarke was clearly winded from the winging shots, and the hurt Apochi was smiling from ear to ear and talking trash as he fought back. Clarke landed a fight-high 20 punches in the round.
In the final five seconds of the ninth round, Apochi rallied and connected with a series of equilibrium-altering right hands that had Clarke shook and on wobbly legs.
Realizing he needed a knockout to win the fight, Apochi went back on the attack in the 10th, chasing Clarke with a vicious barrage of punches. But the brave Clarke stood and traded, landing rights to stave off Apochi to sneak away with the win.
Opening the DAZN broadcast of the undercard to the Diego Pacheco-Maciej Sulecki main event, Ginny Fuchs and Adelaida Ruiz engaged in a competitive, action-packed firefight, and it was Fuchs who did just enough to be rewarded with the split decision victory and the WBC interim junior bantamweight title.
Judges scored the tight rounds all over the place, with Fuchs winning 100-90 and 97-93 on two cards, while a third judge had it 97-93 for Ruiz.
The 36-year-old amateur standout Fuchs – a captain of the 2020 U.S. Olympics team – was coming into the contest off a 14-month layoff from her last professional fight, but her conditioning never came into question during her first career 10-round bout.
Fuchs (4-0, 1 KOs) showed serious grit and courage, surviving a dislodged right thumb from the first round and swelling in her face midway through the fight to outlast the game Ruiz (16-1-1, 8 KOs).
Ruiz appeared to win some of the early rounds, but Fuchs bounced back admirably to close the show in style. Fuchs landed 154 of 497 shots, while Ruiz answered with 123 of 460.
The southpaw Fuchs and orthodox fighter Ruiz got their legs tangled in the third, forcing Fuchs to fall. But she got back up, fired up to pull away in Rounds 3 and 4.
By the fifth round, however, the right side of Fuchs’ face started to swell due to the damage inflicted by Ruiz’s left hand. Ruiz’s sweeping left hook and check left hand hit paydirt in the sixth as she got herself back into the fight.
Ruiz, a 35-year-old born and raised in Los Angeles, leaned on a swarming offensive attack in the seventh and started targeting the body, hoping to slow down Fuchs.
Fuchs fired back with big left hands in the eighth round to show she was very much still in the fight. Both fighters had thrown over 300 punches to that point.
Ruiz unleashed a huge right hand in the ninth, but Fuchs answered with one of her own.
The action slowed in the 10th round, as Fuchs landed a fight-low 10 punches, but Ruiz throttled down as well, answering with a fight-low seven punches.
During the untelevised portion of the card, Matchroom’s latest prospect signee, Fabian Rojo (9-1, 7 KOs), got his promotional debut off to a sour start, as the welterweight was rocked and knocked down twice by Alejandro Frias (16-10-2, 7 KOs) – once in the second and again in the fourth – to suffer the first loss of his professional career. Each of the three judges scored the fight 58-54 in favor of Frias, a 27-year-old journeyman from Mexico.
Also, Alex Gueche (6-0, 5 KOs) dropped David Vargas (8-5-2, 5 KOs) in the first round and cruised through the rest of the six-round contest to land a unanimous decision win, as each of the three judges scored the fight 60-53.
And junior welterweight Criztec Bazaldua (7-0, 1 KOs) kicked off the card by scoring a hard-fought six-round unanimous decision victory against Kyle Erwin (7-3, 3 KOs) to kick off the card.
Manouk Akopyan is a sports journalist, writer and broadcast reporter whose work has appeared on ESPN, Fox Sports, USA Today, The Guardian, Newsweek, Men’s Health, NFL.com, Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Ring Magazine and more. He has been writing for BoxingScene since 2018. Manouk is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and the MMA Journalists Association. He can be reached on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube, through email at manouk[dot]akopyan[at]gmail.com or via www.ManoukAkopyan.com.
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