By Scott Gilfoid: Let me be the one that tells it before it happens: WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (23-0, 11 KO’s) WILL NOT impress against recently promoted #10 WBO ranked contender Tommy Karpency (21-2-1, 14 KO’s) on February 25th and that’s not because Karpency is a good fighter.

Nope, that won’t be the reason. The reason why Cleverly won’t look very good against Karpency is the same reason Cleverly struggled in his last fight against bottom feeder Tony Bellew. Do you get my drift?

The reason Cleverly will go life and death with Karpency is because Cleverly simply isn’t that good. He’s going to beat Karpency, I have no doubt about that, but it’s going to be hard as heck for him to accomplish that and there’s going to be a lot of sweat, blood and physical torture involved in beating Karpency.

This is a guy that talented fighters like Chad Dawson and 47-year-old Bernard Hopkins would likely school without any problems, but we’re talking Cleverly here, a fighter that was given the WBA title rather than having to earn it in the ring. I just don’t see this as being fight where Cleverly will impress anyone, not even his own UK fans.

I don’t expect the Brits to fess up and admit it when he stinks up the joint, because there’s a strong loyalty among Brits, but I’ll make sure I open my trap tell it when he looks like horrible. Like I said, Cleverly will win but it’ll be one of those victories where he loses. You always lose when you pick out a weaker opponent to pick of up a ‘W’ instead of shooting for the top quality game. Karpency will stay on his feet for the full 12 rounds because Cleverly isn’t a big hitter and won’t be able to put him away like a better light heavyweight would with superior power.