By Nate Anderson: Undefeated Nathan Cleverly (13-0, 3 KOs) had too much youth for former BBBofC British light heavyweight champion Tony Oakey (25-4-1, 7 KOs) on Friday night, defeating him by a one-sided 12-round unanimous decision to win the vacant Commonwealth (British Empire) light heavyweight title at the Everton Park Sports Centre, in Liverpool, Merseyside. Cleverly, only 21, fought well in the first two rounds, but then started having problems with Oakey’s continuous pressure, and appeared to lose rounds three through six. Part of the problems for Cleverly, 6’1″, was that he was making a mistake of letting the shorter 5’8″ Oakey fight him on the inside, thus taking away most of Cleverly’s long reach advantage over Oakey.
After the sixth round, however, Oakey gassed out completely, looking more like a fighter in his mid 40s than his true age of 32. I’d like to give Cleverly more credit of taking over the fight on his own accord, but it looked for the most part that Oakey just plain got tired in the ring and had nothing left to throw after the 6th. Sure, he continued to throw a punch here and there, catching Cleverly each time he’d let his hands go, but the fact of the matter was, Oakey just shot up his fireworks too early and had nothing else after that. Cleverly, 21, just took over the fight once he saw that Oakey wasn’t a threat anymore and used his reach, jab and uppercuts to win the remainder of the rounds.
He wasn’t hitting Oakey with anything big because Cleverly has zero power, but he was hitting him just enough to win the rounds. Oakey looked like needed a bad rest and couldn’t find the energy to fight hard like he had in rounds three through six. In ten through twelve, Cleverly moved constantly, tying Oakey up when he came too close and hitting him with a lot of leaping hooks to the head.
Again, nothing was thrown with any menace, because Cleverly didn’t have the kind of power that would bother Oakey or most fighters. However, it didn’t matter because Oakey was done for the night and didn’t have the energy to chase Cleverly around the ring. He tried briefly in the 12th to catch up to Cleverly, but quickly gave up and just rode out the round doing little. Perhaps if the fight had taken place three or four years ago, Oakey would have had enough stamina to fight hard for the full 12-rounds, but not on Friday night. He looked all of 32 and more.