Cleverly looking forward to beating Man to get to Braehmer fight

By Boxing News - 05/28/2015 - Comments

cleverly55By Scott Gilfoid: After a loss to Tony Bellew in his last fight, former WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (28-2, 14 KOs) will be looking to get a victory on Saturday night against Tomas Man (13-8-1, 8 KOs) in an eight round fight on the Kell Brook – Frankie Gavin card on Sky Box Office at the O2 Arena in London, UK.

Cleverly can’t mess up in this fight because he’s got a world title shot against WBA light heavyweight champion Juergen Braehmer in September.

Besides not messing up, Cleverly also can’t afford to suffer any kind of cuts or other injuries because that would soil his chances of getting the world title shot. Cleverly surely hasn’t earned the title shot; not unless you count losing to Bellew as earning as earning a title fight.

The 38-year-old Man isn’t expected to put up much resistance for Cleverly, even though Man is coming into the fight with an 11 fight winning streak. The wins have come against weak opposition unfortunately.

“We have a lot of history, me and Braehmer. It would be nice if we could finally get this fight on because it has been meaning to happen for a long, long time,” Cleverly said to Skysports.com.”Let’s just both get in the ring and settle it once and for all. I have to respect his power but I feel I have too much for Juergen Braehmer.”

Cleverly was supposed to have fought Braehmer four years ago, but an injury to Braehmer caused the fight to go up in smoke. The WBO subsequently stripped Braehmer of his WBO 175 pound title and gave the strap to Cleverly, who held it for two years before losing it to Sergey Kovalev in 2013.

Cleverly’s confidence has got to be at an all-time low right now, as he’s lost 2 out of his last 4 fights. He picked up a couple of wins at cruiserweight after moving up to the division in 2014, but then he lost to Bellew last November. It was clear from the start that Cleverly didn’t belong in the cruiserweight division. He didn’t have the punching power, and he wasn’t particularly big compares to the other legitimate cruiserweights. At the time, Cleverly said that he couldn’t make weight for the light heavyweight division anymore, but now that he’s failed at cruiserweight, he suddenly has found a way to drain down to 175.

The Braehmer fight will likely go badly for Cleverly, and once he loses that fight, then it’s going to look bleak for him. Braehmer is the weak link among the light heavyweight champions. It doesn’t get weaker than that. If Cleverly can’t even beat Braehmer, then he’s going to need to be content with just being a contender.

Cleverly won’t be able to compete with the other 175 pound champions Adonis Stevenson and Kovalev. Likewise, Cleverly can’t move back up in weight to cruiserweight because the champions in that weight class will tear him apart.



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