By Scott Gilfoid: Former WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (26-1, 12 KO’s) will be moving up to the cruiserweight division for his next fight to take on 2nd tier fighter Daniel Ammann (29-5-1, 6 KO’s) for the vacant Commonwealth cruiserweight strap on November 30th at the Copper Box Arena, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Hackney Wick, London, United Kingdom.
This an strange move on the 26-year-old Cleverly’s part in abandoning the 175 lb. division, but also not a surprising one given the hiding that Cleverly took at the hands of Russian Sergey Kovalev last August. Cleverly was stopped in the 4th round by Kovalev and lost his WBO title in the process. That fight was about as competitive as watching someone work out on a heavy bag. Cleverly was pummeled from pillar to post by Kovalev for four rounds until the referee called a halt to the slaughter in the 4th.
Cleverly said “I’ve got the hunger and desire back and I want to be a world champion again. I miss having the belt around my waist.”
Cleverly’s decision to move up to the cruiserweight division in response to his defeat is one that he’ll likely regret, because this doesn’t appear to be a well thought out idea on his part. I mean, look at the logic of it: If Cleverly doesn’t have the power to compete against the strongest light heavyweights in the division in Kovalev and Adonis Stevenson, then how in the heck will be able to compete against the perhaps even more powerful cruiserweights like Marco Huck. Denis Lebedev, Krzystof Wlodarczyk and Yoan Pablo Hernandez. Those guys can punch with about as much if not more power as Kovalev, so I don’t understand where Cleverly is going to have any advantages against any of them. Cleverly won’t be able to get a title given to him outside of the ring like he did with the WBO 175 lb. strap, and he’s not going to have easy marks like Tommy Karpency, Tony Bellew, Robin Krasniqi and Shawn Hawk for him to fight. If Cleverly wants an actual world title at cruiserweight, he’s going to have to take on a big puncher and like Huck, Lebedev, Hernandez or Wlodarczyk, and I don’t give Cleverly any chance at all in beating any of them in this lifetime.
Cleverly will probably beat the 30-year-old Ammann, but that’s not saying anything. We’re talking 2nd tier opposition here. Ammann was blown out in 2 rounds by Alexander Alekseev and he’s also been beaten by Shane Cameron, Dominic Vea, Peter Brennan, and a fighter named Brad Pitt. This is going to be an easy fight for Cleverly, but also one that will likely give him some false confidence because Cleverly will get his hopes up after beating this guy and probably think he can then move forward to beat one of the cruiserweight champions. I hate to rain on Cleverly’s parade but if you throw him in the ring with WBO champion Huck, he’ll be lucky to make it to the 2nd round before Huck takes his head off. I don’t imagine that Cleverly will be targeting Huck though because Cleverly’s ranked #13 by the IBF, and that means he’s going to be likely targeting Denis Lebedev. I don’t see that as a winnable fight for Cleverly. Lebedev punches too hard and he’s capable of doing everything that Kovalev did to Cleverly.
Adding Cleverly to the November 30th Copperbox card is definitely a good thing because the card badly needs him. The head-line fight between heavyweight Dereck Chisora and Italian Matteo Madugno leaves a lot to be desired. That’s a terrible fight. I don’t know of too many Brits that are familiar with Madugno, and after seeing him getting bounced around by cruiserweight Clemente Russo in sparring, I think Chisora is going to easily destroy this guy.
I see Cleverly’s experiment with the cruiserweight division lasting as long as it takes until he fights his first quality opponent in this weight class. Once he faces someone good, I see him getting knocked out again and then moving back down to the light heavyweight division. It’s too bad he can’t see the big picture and realize that he would be better off staying at 175 and targeting someone like WBA champ Beibut Shumenov or waiting out IBF champion Bernard Hopkins. That would seem like the smarter move for Cleverly rather than moving up in weight to face even bigger punchers than Kovalev.
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