Clottey vs. Green on 3/12: Joshua looking for another title shot

By Boxing News - 03/01/2011 - Comments

Image: Clottey vs. Green on 3/12: Joshua looking for another title shotBy Michael Lieberman: It’s been almost a year since Joshua Clottey (35-4, 20 KO’s) last stepped into the ring when he was totally dominated by Manny Pacquiao in one of the most boring mega fights in memory. Clottey has had an entire year to lick his wounds from the Pacquiao defeat and figure out what he’s going to do with his career. On March 12th, Clottey fights Calvin Green (21-5-1, 13 KO’s) in junior middleweight action.

The 5’9″ Clottey doesn’t want to keep boiling down to make welterweight, because he feels that this is one of the biggest factors for why he’s lost his power and is no longer knocking out his opponents like he used to. It could be the weight, like Clottey believes it to be, or it simply could be that Clottey is getting older, his stamina getting worse and he’s not able to knock fighters out by throwing only 20 to 30 punches per round.

I suspect that Clottey won’t knockout Green if he’s not able to throwing more than 30 punches in any given round. You got to do better than that unless you have huge punching power. Clottey doesn’t have huge power and is someone that needs to throw a lot of punches to get knockouts.

Clottey needs to look good in beating Green on Saturday because there’s talk of Clottey fighting the winner of the Yuri Foreman vs. Pawel Wolak fight, which also takes place on the same card. Clottey won’t likely get that fight if he struggles and stinks up the joint like he did in the Pacquiao fight. Clottey has got to let his hands go and look good. Just covering up on the ropes behind his high guard is painful to watch, because Clottey just looks to be trying to rest and survive instead of trying to win. He’ll likely have no problems against Green, because he’s lost two out of his last three fights by knockout. But you can’t be too sure because Clottey has shot himself in the foot in his last two fights and just doesn’t look like the fighter he once was. The time off from boxing probably won’t help him either on Saturday.

You can expect Clottey to get another title shot if he beats Green and then the winner of the Foreman-Wolak fight. Bob Arum, Clottey’s promoter, will then likely put Clottey in with WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto, if he’s still the champion by then.



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