By Scott Gilfoid: Light heavyweight contender Tony Bellew believes the sole reason that WBO light heavyweight Nathan Cleverly’s team selected the hard hitting Sergey Kovalev (21-0-1, 19 KO’s) to fight in an optional defense is because they see him as a flawed fighter that Cleverly can get by. Bellew doesn’t think Cleverly would be matched up with Kovalev if he were a Gennady Golovkin type of fighter.
Bellew said on his twitter “This fight wouldn’t be happening if he [Kovalev] was anything like Golovkin, believe me. They see he’d just a puncher and they know they’ll outwork him. Just remember this is a voluntary, not a mandatory. There is a reason they chose this guy. They see him as a hype job, simple. Golovkin = P4p. Kovalev = Strong/limited, There is NO comparison…I’m merely stating facts.”
I kind of agree with Bellew a little bit here. I think Cleverly’s team, including Cleverly, see Kovalev as a flawed fighter that they can beat. If he was someone that was really difficult like Golovkin, no way do I see Cleverly agreeing to that fight. I realize that Golovkin is a middleweight and Cleverly is a light heavyweight, but I’m talking about someone with that kind of talent at 175.
Kovalev is a good puncher, but he’s struggled in the past in fights against Darnell Boone. Kovalev has improved a lot since then, but he’s probably going to have to knock Cleverly out in order to get the win, because I can’t see him getting a decision at the Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom. I don’t care how badly Kovalev punishes Cleverly, if he doesn’t knock him out, I see Kovalev losing by a decision.
Cleverly seems to be able to take a massive amount of punishment to the head. He’s not really faced a good puncher yet like Kovalev, it should be interesting to see if Cleverly can take his kind of punches. There’s a limit to what a human can take in terms of getting hit in the head, and it’s possible we may see Cleverly reach his limit on Saturday night if he tries to use his head to block Kovalev’s huge shots rather than his gloves.
Kovalev reminds me of a bigger Kostya Tszyu, and he’s going to really pound Cleverly in this fight. I suspect Cleverly will try and outwork him, but that means Cleverly will take enormous punishment in the process of trying to accomplish that task.
Comments are closed.