By Scott Gilfoid: Juergen Braehmer may have made a mistake in pulling out of his fight against Nathan Cleverly last Saturday night at the Jahnsportforum in Neubrandenburg, Germany. Braehmer thought he had an elbow injury.
Braehmer quit on his stool after the 6th round had ended. The injury turned out to be merely a minor muscle tear of his right forearm. The good news is Braehmer won’t need surgery for the injury to be repaired. It’ll heal with rest.
(Photo Credit: Uwe Koch)
It’s too bad that there wasn’t a diagnosis done on the spot, because he might have been able to continue fighting using mainly his left arm. Braehmer was ahead on all three judges’ scorecards at the time of the stoppage. They had him up by a 58-56, 58-56 and 58-56 score. Braehmer lost his WBA World light heavyweight title in the defeat.
Braehmer turned 38 on Wednesday, and he plans on using his rematch clause he had in his contract to get a rematch against Cleverly in early 2017. Cleverly has no problems fighting Braehmer a second time, as he feels he’ll beat him
“Fortunately, the injury was not as bad as it first seemed,” Braehmer said. “After a suggested period of rest, I will begin my rehabilitation and will be ready for the rematch as soon as possible.”
Cleverly took credit for the injury with the high pace that he set for the fight. Cleverly threw a lot of punches through five rounds. Cleverly slowed down in the 6th and threw fewer punches. However, even with Cleverly’s high pace in the first five rounds, he was still behind in the fight at the end. He was hit with Braehmer’s bigger shots and that’s what kept him from leading at the end.
In the rematch, Cleverly is going to need to come up with a different strategy to beat Braehmer. Cleverly can’t throw a lot weak punches the entire fight and expect to win a decision against Braehmer. Cleverly needs to throw more body shots, because that’s the only area where he seemed to be able to throw with a little bit of power.
“I wanted to break him up in the first half of the fight and that’s what was happening,” said Cleverly. “I felt him wince and wheeze in the sixth round when I was hitting him to the body and there was little coming back. The fight was only going one way.”
I had to break the news to Cleverly, but his punches were getting blocked on the gloves and arms of Braehmer during the entire fight. I only saw a few instances in the fight where Cleverly’s shots got through Braehmer’s guard. I don’t believe Cleverly did anything to cause the injury. A muscle tear is usually caused by a fighter throwing a punch rather than him getting hit. So it’s not something that Cleverly did that caused the freak injury. It was more of what Braehmer did.
In the rematch, Braehmer just needs to use his boxing skills and a little bit of movement, and he should be able to out-box Cleverly with ease. Braehmer already proved that he’s the better puncher of the two, and the smarter fighter. The only thing that Cleverly can do is to try and throw a lot of punches in the rematch, but that’s not going to work I’m afraid.