Cleverly vs. Krasniqi and Chisora vs. Avila this Saturday in London

By Boxing News - 04/19/2013 - Comments

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By Thomas Cowan: WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly faces #1 challenger Robin Krasniqi this weekend at Wembley Arena, London. Krasniqi has been extremely carefully matched in his career, mostly fighting journeyman in four, six and eight round fights. You can tell Krasniqi’s opponents have been poor because it’s taken him 38 consecutive wins build his way up to a mandatory spot.

I’m expecting Cleverly to beat Krasniqi because I don’t think the German-based Kosovan has ever been in with anyone even nearly as good as Cleverly. I’ve watched Krasniqi’s last four fights where he’s knocked out all four opponents and although he’s looked impressive I thought all the fighters he faced looked very easy to hit. Assuming he looks good in this fight, Cleverly needs to move onto bigger things after this fight. His opponents since winning the WBO belt have been poor and he wasted 2012 by facing unknown Americans Tommy Karpency and Shawn Hawk, neither of whom posed any sort of threat.

Frank Warren, Cleverly’s promoter, needs to get Cleverly a big unification fight by the end of 2013 against Bernard Hopkins or Beibut Shumenov. WBC champion Chad Dawson is facing Adonis Stevenson on June 8th and after that he’ll be fighting the winner of Tony Bellew and Isaac Chilemba so that fight won’t be possible and Cleverly isn’t ready for Dawson yet anyway.

IBF champion Hopkins will be facing #1 challenger Karo Murat in the summer, who Cleverly knocked out in 8 roundss in 2010. It’s unlikely Hopkins, who hasn’t stopped an opponent since 2004, will be able to emulate that, but he should beat Murat with ease. Hopkins has made it clear he’d be willing to fight Cleverly in Britain, who wants to face the 48 year old at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff. That fight would sell at least 30,000 tickets in Wales and it’s a very dangerous fight for Cleverly because Hopkins showed against Tavoris Cloud he’s still capable of embarassing fighters in their 20s.

The other option, the option I expecct Warren to steer Cleverly towards is WBA champion Shumenov. Shumenov has fought just once in the last 20 months and doesn’t currently have a fight scheduled and I can’t find any news of him being injured so I’m not sure why he’s so inactive. Shumenov is very limited and I’d back Cleverly to beat him comfortably. I’d rather see Cleverly face Hopkins even though I think he’d lose but Warren will probably match him with Shumenov unless Cleverly forces the issue.

On the undercard, controversial heavyweight Dereck Chisora faces Argentinian Hector Avila in his first fight since being knocked out by David Haye in their grudge match last July. Chisora’s had a bad two years, losing 4 of his last 5 fights but that statistic is misleading. 3 of those fights were against Haye, Vitali Klitschko and Tyson Fury who are all top fighters.

Chisora gave both Vitali and Fury problems but overall came up short. It’s impossible to tell if It would have made any difference but Chisora looked at least 20 pounds overweight for the fights with Haye and Fury. His other loss to Robert Helenius was due to dreadful judging which robbed Chisora of the European title.

If Chisora can make sure he stays in good shape, then he can still have a good career. I don’t see him as good enough to win a world title but I think he’s in the top 15 heavyweights. Chisora wants to face British and Commonwealth champion David Price in the autumn if Price can avenge his shock loss to Tony Thompson. I think that would be an excellent fight and if Chisora can land a big right hand on Price’s chin he’d have a decent chance. First he has to get Avila out the way to get rid of any ring rust.

Prediction – Chisora to win by 3rd round KO



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