Cleverly in crucial fight next Saturday against Valori

By Boxing News - 07/05/2014 - Comments

cleverly444By Scott Gilfoid: Former WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (27-1, 13 KO’s) is in what he calls a “crucial” fight next Saturday night against little known 2nd tier fighter Alejandro Emilio Valori (15-4, 11 KO’s) at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, UK.

Cleverly, 27, will be defending his WBA Inter-Continental cruiserweight strap in the fight.

What’s interesting here is that Cleverly, #12 WBA, #12 WBO, #13 IBF, says he thinks he’s only 2 wins away from fighting for a world title against one of the champions. If you look at Cleverly’s rankings, he’s basically a fringe contender; so if he’s to be given a world title shot off of a win over Valori and a victory over Tony Bellew in their talked about rematch in November of this year, then it means Cleverly will be leap frogging over a ton of arguably more deserving contenders like Thabiso Mchunu, Ilunga Makabu and Rakhim Chakhkiev to get his world title shot.

“Every fight is crucial for me now. I need to win and I need to keep winning,” Cleverly said. “If I do that then the big fights will come again. Valori will be a slight step up and that’s what I need now; a gradual step up with me being new at the weight division. He will come to fight. He’ll come swinging early on and he’s quite strong and ruggedly tough but if I’m going to push on I need to beat this guy and win in emphatic fashion.”

What else can the 31-year-old Valori do other than swing for the fences and hope that he can chop Cleverly down in the same manner that Sergey Kovalev did. I mean, Valori isn’t the most talented fighter in the word, as he’s lost to the likes of Matias Ariel Vidondo, Maximiliano Alejandro Soso, and Marcos Antonio Ahumada. I never heard of any of these fighters, yet they all beat Valori in his native Argentina.

It doesn’t mean that he can’t beat Cleverly, because at this weight, Cleverly is like a fish out of the pond that he was previously swimming in, and he’s vulnerable against almost any fighter in the division. It was obviously a smart move by his promoter Eddie Hearn to match him up against another 2nd tier fighter along the same lines as his last opponent Shawn Corbin, becauyse Cleverly might not have the chin to stand up to the big hitters in this division after the way he was chopped down by Sergey Kovalev last year in August.

“The grudge match – me against Tony Bellew – is going to be a big fight,” Cleverly said. “And then the winner of that potentially fights for a world title so every fight is crucial.”

It’s pretty amazing that Cleverly is in the position where he could fight for a world title after just 3 wins in the cruiserweight division over 39-year-old journeyman Shawn Corbin, Alejandro Emilio Valori and Tony Bellew. You’d like to see guys that get world title shots to have to beat the likes of Mchunu, Makabu or Chakhkiev in order to earn the chance to fight for a world title, wouldn’t you? While you can see it as a good thing for Cleverly that he could get a chance for a world title fight the easy way, Hearn is probably doing him no favors by having him fight for a world title against guys that he doesn’t match up well with. Cleverly doesn’t match up with any of the cruiserweight champions Marco Huck, Yoan Pablo Hernandez, Krzysztof Wlodarczyk or Denis Lebedev. The outcome of those fights will likley see Cleverly knocked out.

Bellew will be fighting on the same Cleverly-Valori card next Saturday against a fighter named Julio Cesar Santos.



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