Cleverly hoping for a big summer fight if he can beat Karpency on Saturday

By Boxing News - 02/21/2012 - Comments

Image: Cleverly hoping for a big summer fight if he can beat Karpency on SaturdayBy Scott Gilfoid: WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (23-0, 11 KO’s) is already looking past this Saturday’s opponent Tommy Karpency (21-2-1, 14 KO’s) at the Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff, Wales, UK. Cleverly, 25, is hoping to face one of the big names in the light heavyweight division – Bernard Hopkins, Chad Dawson, Jean Pascal, Beibut Shumenov or Tavoris Cloud – if he can beat Karpency.

Cleverly’s preference is to fight Shumenov or Cloud, but he could get any one of the bunch. I personally think it’s a really bad ides that Cleverly fight any of those guys. I mean, you got to crawl before you walk and Cleverly just hasn’t looked good against the guys that he’s been in with. He just won a questionable decision over #13 WBO ranked Tony Bellew and was staggered in his fight before that against Aleksy Kuziemski.

The fight before that, Cleverly barely beat Nadjib Mohammedi. So Cleverly is struggling to beat these guys and he wants to fight the top names? I think it’s a really bad idea and way too premature for him. He’s not even fighting his mandatory challenger over and over again, and he wants to fight the top guys? How about Cleverly faces his #1 contender, eh? I’d like to see him go from fighting the bottom ranked guys to at least facing someone in the top five BEFORE he takes on the cream the crop. That’s like going from going cold water to steaming water immediately.It’s just not wise. Cleverly will be lucky if he beats Karpency without controversy on Saturday because he’s simply lacking in talent.

Cleverly sees Hopkins as the #1 fighter in the division. I disagree with that. Hopkins is about to get beaten by Dawson in April, and we saw last time they fought that Hopkins has slipped and Dawson is now the guy in the division.

As for a fight against Dawson, Cleverly feels he needs two or three fights before he’ll be ready to fight him. Are you kidding? Cleverly won’t be ready to fight Dawson this year or next year. Dawson is way too talented for Cleverly. I think Cleverly may need to wait more like 10 years before he can face a you guy like Dawson. By then, Cleverly will be 35 and Dawson 40. Maybe then Cleverly would stand a chance against an old and possibly shot Dawson, but right there is such a wide gulf in talent between two of them that it wouldn’t even be a fight.

As for the rest, Cloud, Shumenov and Pascal. Those guys are too good for Cleverly as well. I’d hate to see them brought into the UK to fight Cleverly and give him a royal spanking in front of his Welsh fans. It would be bad.

The one fighter that wasn’t mentioned as a possible opponent for Cleverly in the summer was unbeaten contender Ismayl Sillakh. That guy is A LOT better Cleverly and I think he would beat Cleverly by a lopsided decision or knock him out. I wonder why he wasn’t mentioned?



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