By Shaun Campbell: So Nathan Cleverly is back on Sky Box Office after his last thrilling encounter with Karo Murat, which was thought to be the best fight of the night on The Magnificent 7 bill back in September. After stopping the tough German, Cleverly is now targeting a shot at WBO world champion Juergen Braehmer sometime next year. The talented youngster first has to come through the “WBO European light-heavyweight champion” (whatever that is worth) Alejandro Lakatos. The Spaniard has won 31 fights, and lost 5. But the wins on his record do not really fill anyone with confidence that he will have enough to beat Cleverly. He has fought for a world title before, coming unstuck in that fight and losing by a fairly wide margined on the scorecards against Zsolt Erdei. The Welshman however seems only to be getting better and better. He is a talented that really does excite me. But in his last fight, while putting on a fantastic show, he showed signs of inexperience by getting the win the hard way. Instead of using his superior handspeed and skills, Cleverly elected to slug it out with Murat. I have no doubts though that he will come through this fight and move on to a world title fight sometime next year. Nathan now says is hitting harder, and faster as he grows in to the weight.

Prediction – Nathan Cleverly TKO within 5 rounds.

Young unbeaten welterweight star ‘Special K’ Kell Brook takes on Philip Kotey in a defence of his WBO Inter-continental title. Brook is now technically the next challenger for Manny Pacquiao’s WBO welterweight world title, however neither Pacquiao or Brook are exactly scrambling to make that fight happen. Kell knows he isn’t ready to step in with the pound for pound champ yet, but he is hot on the heals and it is clear he is a one of Britain’s top talents. The man from Sheffield seems to have slipped under the radar of some fight fans in Britain, as it is only recently he is begging to get noticed fully by the majority of people, despite being ranked in the top 5 welterweights in the world by Boxrec. Disappointingly, unlike Cleverly, his last fight against Michael Jennings did not exactly go how many thought it would be. It was a fairly decent performance by Brook who did what he had to do in a fight which was stopped on cuts, with the British champion leading on the scorecards. Kotey, who is moving down from light-middleweight, steps into the ring with 21 wins, 5 loses, and 2 draws. But again, he hasn’t faced anyone at the top level and even lost his first professional fight. Losing in challenges for the Ghanaian title, and other African titles, it doesn’t seem possible that he will derail the impressive youngster.

Prediction – Kell Brook TKO within 3 rounds.

European middleweight champion Matthew Macklin is also knocking on the door of a world title shot, as he has IBF champion Sebastian Sylvester in his sights. But that will have to wait for the ambitious fighter from Birmingham as he must first take on former world title challenger Ruben Varon. Varon’s record again does not strike fear into Macklin’s fans as he lost that world title fight by a big margin. But this is boxing and anything can happen, and he does have a fairly impressive win over current European light-middleweight champion Lukas Konecny. The problem with Macklin, that he himself has admitted to, when he faces lesser opponents his own performance drops. This unfortunately was the case in his last fight as he was scheduled to be involved in a massive showdown with fellow British fighter Darren Barker. An injury to Barker forced him to pull out late and Shalva Jomardashvili was made his replacement. Being fair to Macklin, Darren Barker and Shalva Jomardashvili are two totally different fighters, both in style, and class. Macklin got the win via Jomardashvili retiring in the 6th round, but it wasn’t a classic performance. He must look good in his next fight if he wants that world title shot, and to install himself with confidence. For me personally, Macklin at his best is a genuine world class fighter who is worthy of a shot at any of the champions, but he must come through this fight well. In his corner will be Joe Gallagher, who himself is building himself a reputation in Britain has one of the countries top trainers.

Prediction – Matthew Macklin via TKO