By Jim Dower: Former IBF welterweight champion Joshua Clottey (35-4, 20 KO’s) will be fighting on the undercard of the Miguel Cotto vs. Ricardo Mayorga fight card on March 12th in a 10 round bout against junior middleweight Calvin Green (21-5-1, 13 KO’s) at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Clottey, 33, lost his last two fights to Cotto and Manny Pacquiao. The Pacquiao fight was a particularly bad one for Clottey, because he looked like he wasn’t even trying to win.

Clottey covered up most of the fight and seemed to be content with just surviving. That loss put Clottey back at square one with his career. He now plans on fighting as a junior middleweight rather than a welterweight, because of how difficult it’s become for him to try and make 147. The unfortunate thing is that there really isn’t anyone for Clottey to fight at junior middleweight that will bring him the kind of money that he got for the Pacquiao fight. He was already beaten by Cotto, so that option is pretty much dead unless Bob Arum wants to match his two fighters back up against each other again. I can’t see that happening because no one wants to see Clottey face Cotto again and Cotto can make a lot more money fighting guys like Antonio Margarito and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., both of which are Top Rank fighters.

Clottey’s best chance to resurrect his career is to beat Green convincingly on March 12th, and then look to take on some of the top contenders in the division so that he can get ranked high enough to get a title shot. Clottey’s lack of offensive skills will make it nearly impossible for him to beat any of the champions though. He’s got good power, but he doesn’t throw enough punches.

Fighting behind his high guard all night long won’t be good enough for him to beat anyone halfway good. Clottey can get by guys like Green with that kind of low punch output style of fighting, but not someone that throws punches with any kind of frequency. Arum might want to cut his losses at some point and go in a different direction unless Clottey makes some dramatic improvement in his offensive game. I don’t see that happening at 33. Clottey is what he is.