By Scott Gilfoid: It seems that a lot of former WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly’s followers are coming out of the woodwork with their second guessing of his fight tactics in his quick 4th round destruction against Sergey Kovalev (22-0-1, 20 KO’s) last week.
Joe Calzaghe is the latest one who feels that all Cleverly had to do in order to beat Kovalev was use his speed, and he would have gotten the job done. Tony Bellew is another one thinks that all Cleverly had to do was turn on the speed, and Kovalev would have been beaten.
Calzaghe said to the South Wales Argus “I felt he [Kovalev] was very slow and looked beatable. But in order to do that Nathan needed to utilize his speed, he didn’t do that and as his friend sitting at ringside, it was horrible to see him lose like that…that pressure mounted on him a little bit…Nathan needs a break.”
I don’t what on earth Calzaghe is talking about when he says Cleverly should have used his speed. Does he have mixed up with someone else like Andre Dirrell, Andre Ward or Adonis Stevenson? Those are the guys with the speed, not Cleverly. How do you get speed from a guy that is slow as heck, and who fights in an upright manner without much in the way of defensive skills.
Cleverly has never been known for his hand speed, so what is Calzaghe blabbering about? Believe me, if Cleverly had hand speed don’t you think he would have flipped through that gear trying to figure out how to beat Kovalev. I saw at least two adjustments that Cleverly made against Kovalev, and neither of them worked.
Surely, Cleverly would have unveiled his hand speed early in the fight when things started going terribly wrong for him in the 2nd round. I think Cleverly went to the cupboard and emptied it out completely to use everything he can against Kovalev, and the cupboard was basically empty.
Cleverly had nothing to try and beat Kovalv with other than hoping he’d get tried from smacking him in the head. That obviously didn’t work, and Cleverly lost as he should have lost.
I believe Calzaghe would have been destroyed by Kovalev if he fought him in his prime, because this guy is so much better than the guys that Calzaghe fought during his career with his inflated record. The best guys that Calzaghe fought were Bernard Hopkins, Mikkel Kessler and Roy Jones Jr, and I see Kovalev easily beating all three of those guys.
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