By Daniel Ciminera: Nathan Cleverly’s hopes of winning the the European Boxing Union light-heavyweight European title this month have been scuppered due to Brancalion’s camp postponing yet again! The bout, originally supposed to be on the same card as Khan vs Salita, was postponed until January the 29th and moved to Rovigo, Italy, Brancalion’s hometown when the Italian’s promoters won the rights to the purse and hostage for the bout for the vacant title. While most were expecting Cleverly to come back with the honours, going to Italy and winning is never an easy prospect.
This could be a silver lining as Cleverly’s people are now trying to reschedule the fight for as soon as they can in the UK, though hopes of getting Brancalion into the ring are fading fast here in Wales. Cleverly himself saying “It’s obvious that Brancalion is running scared and his team are doing everything they can to make sure this fight doesn’t happen”.
“Clev” summed up the frustrations surrounding this fight when he stated “I sacrificed my Christmas for this joker” before saying he was going to batter him “worse than Silvio Berlusconi, when I finally get my hands on him” when he was recently bludgeoned with a statue. Meanwhile, Frank Warren, Cleverly’s promoter, has made a formal complaint to the EBU against Brancalion and his people.
Boxrec.com however, have removed the bout from their listings, which is possibly bad news for he fight going ahead at all. This would be a major disappointment for Cleverly, who had planned on taking a European belt before graduating from his degree and onto the world stage later in the year. He has though, moved up to 3rd in the IBF rankings with 2nd and 1st positions being vacant (go figure) so it is thought, by summer, he will probably be the mandatory challenger to unbeaten American Tavoris Cloud’s IBF World Title. A fight I can not wait to see!
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