Badou Jack takes light heavyweight title

Badou Jack takes light heavyweight title

Nathan Cleverly's brief reign as the WBA light heavyweight champion came to an emphatic end after Badou Jack stepped up in weight with ruthless dominance.

A fifth round stoppage saw Cleverly surrender his belt to Jack after the former super-middleweight world champion produced an impressive debut in his new division.

After an electric start to the contest, Cleverly struggled to maintain the pace and from the fourth round onwards, Jack was in control.

In his first title defence, Wales' Cleverly was clearly pumped up before the opening bell, striding around the ring with the belt strung across his shoulder and attempting to intimidate the more composed Jack.

Both fighters threw plenty of punches in an open first round and Jack initially landed the cleaner shots with his jab and short left hands, but Cleverly rocked him with a right hand over the top just before the bell.

There was a slight drop in tempo in the second, yet it remained evenly poised - Cleverly throwing plenty of combinations as he got his jab working.

With Cleverly attempting to maintain a tireless work-rate, Jack began to adopt a more counter-attacking strategy and it reaped rewards, as he landed several short uppercuts. It was also in the third where Cleverly is believed to have had his nose broken.

It was in the fourth round that Jack really began to take the ascendancy though, with two big left hands connecting and prompting a flurry of combinations, before a couple of clean jabs.

In the final seconds before the bell, Jack went up another gear as he pressed Cleverly back against the ropes after two thumping left hands left the 30-year-old with blood dripping from his nose.

It became one-way traffic in the fifth, with Cleverly struggling to offer any kind of defence to Jack's body shots that left him reeling against the ropes.

As Jack landed further combinations and the blood poured from Cleverly's face, the referee eventually stepped in to bring a halt to the one-sided contest and confirmed the fourth defeat of the Caerphilly fighter's career.

Victory puts Jack in line for an eventual clash against Andre Ward, although he is likely to face mandatory challenger Dmitry Bivol first.