By Scott Gilfoid: Former WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (26-1, 12 KO’s) will be making his cruiserweight debut on May 17th against an opponent still to be determined at the Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom. Cleverly will be fighting on EBU featherweight champion Lee Selby’s fight card.
Like Cleverly, Selby doesn’t have an opponent picked out for him either. Also on the card is middleweight contender Andy Lee against an opponent still to be determined, super middleweight Callum Smith facing Tobias Webb, lightweight Gavin Rees facing Gary Buckland and light welterweight Chris Jenkins against a still unknown opponents.
Cleverly hasn’t fought since his 4th round TKO loss to Sergey Kovalev last year in August, so you can’t really expect much from him in terms of a good performance. He’s moving up in weight to the cruiserweight division, and they’re likely to match him against someone that is non-risky. Cleverly won’t likely be fighting anyone with any kind of power due to Cleverly being knocked out in his last fight.
I’m sure his promoter will have learned a lesson from the recent Tony Bellew fight that you can’t even match him against an old codger without much power, because even then the chances are fairly good he’ll lose. Bellew was almost knocked out by a 37-year-old Valery Brudov, who isn’t a big puncher and who isn’t even one of the top fighters in the cruiserweight division. I suspect that Cleverly would be in the same boat if they put him in with a guy that even has a hint of power. Cleverly gets hit too much, and he can’t punch at all.
What they don’t need is Cleverly to have to soak up punishment for 12 rounds against a guy with moderate power, and end up looking bad. The problem that Cleverly has is that he’s going to be forced to fight a lot of long distance bouts due to his lack of power, and that’s not a good thing. He’ll eventually be put in with someone with decent power, and we’ll likely see Cleverly knocked out again. Guys with Kovalev type power are a dime a dozen in the cruiserweight division, so Cleverly is going to need to prove that he can take those kinds of shots for him to have any chance of success in this weight class.
Besides that, Cleverly absolutely needs to develop some power, because if he remains the light hitter that he is now, he’s going to be massacred even by the bottom dwellers in the division. We just saw a guy who wasn’t even a bottom dweller almost knock Bellew out, and that pretty much shows you what Cleverly’s fate will be in the cruiserweight division.
I would say for Cleverly to take his time before moving up against the better opposition in the crusierweight division, but I’m not sure if it really matters. Heck, Cleverly might as well jump in the deep end now and get it over with, because if he can’t hang now, he’s not going to compete later on down the line. He’s not going to develop power. It’s either there or it’s not, and waiting around for a year or two before he’s put in with his first live opponent will only be delaying the inevitable.
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