By Gari Jones: Come the 21st May Nathan Cleverly W21 (10), D0, L0 gets the chance to win a major title of the Light heavyweight division, WBO interim holder cleverly will try to unify the title against Juerghan Braehmer W39 (29), L2, D0.

Nathan will face his biggest test to date, Braehmer although not the toughest in the lightweight division is certainly one of the top ten, with 39 wins, 29 KO’s to his credit and only two losses it shows he has experience and KO power to trouble the undefeated Welshmen.

Watching Braehmer on YouTube in his last fight against Mariano Nicolas Plotinsky, he’s a tricky southpaw to deal with; a counter puncher with good head movement if he see the shot coming, he uses the jab well and he also combines the with one-two’s on occasion not all the time but sometimes. He has a tenderness to hit the odd left and right hooks to the head but especially to the body, but he doesn’t seem to follow them up with anything but all round he seems very comfortable fighting this way and solid with it too.

However I don’t think Cleverly will struggle too much against him, one thing that Braehmer tends to do, is leave his hands down quite often, coming in the clinch or when he’s in close, if Cleverly lands an uppercut or a overhand hook there’s a very good possibility that Braehmer will get caught. Cleverly is a boxer on the up, every time he fights he looks sharper and more confident with each step up in opponent.

He last fought against Nadjib Mohammedi who while struggling against did pull out the win, however people should be aware Nadjib was a very late replacement for Alejandro Lakatos who Nathan had be training for, when he fought against Nadjib he hadn’t been prepared for his style and it did throw him off his original gameplan and he had to adapt.

Braehmer seems a very good fighter and that I well may be overlooking him a bit, but looking at Braehmers record he’s fought good boxers but it seems he hasn’t fought the real cream of the crop in recent years. There seems to be a mix here, Mariano was 35yrs old and not very experienced, BOXREC.com 13th Dimitry Sukhotsky was undefeated and more prestige and he got a UD win, Aleksky Kuziemski 32yrs at the time was undefeated but more of a European level than World level fighter, he lost to Hugo Garay in his first shot at WBA and he Title by UD in November 2008 and has a a Rnd 5 KO win over journeyman Rachid Kanfouah who was 35 at the time. The point I’m making is that they are all good fighters some better than others, but they aren’t like the Jean Pascal’s, Bernard Hopkins or the Chad Dawson’s of the division, so Cleverly might be favourite for this fight.

The one name that stands out though is Antonio Brancalion who both men have faced and beaten Cleverly round 5 and Braehmer round 1.

Cleverly is younger, taller, faster and in my opinion the better boxer, Southpaw will give him some trouble but I imagine he’s been in sparring to prepare for such a fighter. So how can Cleverly win this fight if he stays to the right side and keeps moving that way he will take away the advantage of Braehmer’s left body shots and by moving in and out quickly landing combo’s of 1-2’s and maybe a hook for measure I believe Cleverly will wear down Braehmer and set him up for a late Knockout my prediction would be for round 9 or 10.

If he wins this I would like to see Bernard Hopkins maybe take on Nathan Cleverly there’s every possibility of that happening once he holds a major title.