Cleverly expects to face Jurgen Braehmer if he gets past Kransniqi on March 16th

By Boxing News - 02/13/2013 - Comments

cleverly45By Thomas Cowan: WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly has revealed he expects to be making a mandatory defence of his title against German Jurgen Braehmer if he wins his fight against Robin Krasniqi in London next month.

Braehmer earned a shot at Cleverly by beating Eduard Gutknecht in Berlin two weeks ago. This would be a good fight for Cleverly because he’s always been seen as a paper champion after he inherited the title due to former champion Braehmer pulling out of their fight with an injury. Braehmer has worked his way back up the rankings and will be desperate to regain the title that he will feel is rightfully his.

Cleverly will want to get Krasniqi and Braehmer out of the way so he can move onto the big unification fights he desperately craves. I would definitely back Cleverly to get the better of WBA champion Beibut Shumenov but he’d struggle against IBF champion Tavoris Cloud and WBC champion Tavoris Cloud. However, I don’t think it’s impossible for Cleverly to get the better of the Americans because I don’t rate Dawson and Cloud as being that talented.

If Cleverly does get past Krasniqi and Braehmer, I hope he does go on to fight against the best light heavyweights because I rated him highly when he was building his career and I was impressed when he won the British, Commonwealth and European titles at a young age. Unfortunately, since the Brit inherited the WBO title he has usually defended it against poor opponents and he hasn’t looked that great in any of his title defences.

Cleverly’s promoter, Frank Warren, needs to get Cleverly some big fights because the quality of his opponents recently has been awful. Cleverly was beating decent European opposition and his career was progressing nicely before Warren decided to put Cleverly in with Shawn Hawk and Tommy Karpency, two awful American fighters. I understand the principle of trying to make Cleverly well known in USA but his fights with Hawk and Karpency were a total waste of time because American fans aren’t going to suddenly want to see Cleverly fight just because he’s beaten two weak American fighters.

Luckily, 2013 won’t be a waste of time for Cleverly because the WBO are forcing him to fight two decent German fighters in Krasniqi and Braehmer. If he can pass those tests, then he could make a real impact on the 175lbs division by fighting a unification fight later in the year.



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