By William Mackay: WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (23-0, 11 KO’s) defends his title for the third time on this Saturday against #11 WBC contender Tommy Karpency (21-2-1, 14 Ko’s) at the Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff, Wales, UK.

Cleverly, 25, is having a tough time staying focused on the Karpency bout, as he wants to finally step it up and take on the big names in the light heavyweight division like Bernard Hopkins, Chad Dawson, Tavorius Cloud and Beibut Shumenov.

Cleverly’s promoter needs to settle him down, because Karpency will be a tough opponent for Cleverly, and he’s not someone that a champion like Cleverly can afford to overlook. Cleverly hasn’t looked good in an awful long time, even against the opposition dredged up for him in the lower levels of the top 15. Cleverly has been struggling and not shown the talent or the promise of a champion that can hold onto his World Boxing Organization title for any length of time.

Cleverly told Sky Sports News “Fighters like Shumenov, Cloud, I would definitely like to fight one of those guys. There is also the Chad Dawson against Bernard Hopkins fight coming up. I wouldn’t mind facing the winner of that.”

Cleverly’s promoter needs to calm down Cleverly’s ambition because he doesn’t have the talent to just go out and dominate like he should. Cleverly ideally needs to go from facing #13 Bellew, #11 Karpency to at least a top five contender. But to go from facing the bottom ranked guys to a unification title shot or against a major talent like Chad Dawson, it’s going to Cleverly in a real tough position where he’ll almost surely fail.

Karpency, 26, has won his last two fights against little known Julius Jackson and Andre Hempfell. Before that, Karpency was beaten by Karo Murat by a 12 round unanimous decision. Karpency fought Murat tough but still ended up losing by a 12 round decision.