By Scott Gilfoid: WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev (22-0-1, 20 KO’s) says he’s had tougher fights in his career than the easy 4 round annihilation of former WBO 175 lb. champion Nathan Cleverly (26-1, 12 KO’s) last Saturday night at the Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom.
Kovalev, 30, was expecting Cleverly to give him some trouble, but instead he turned out to be little more than a soft punching bag for him to land his big shots on for the short four round fight.
The only trouble Kovalev had was when he suffered a cut over his right eye from a head clash in the 2nd round. The cut didn’t slow Kovalev down a bit, though, and if anything, it made him really go after Cleverly with a vengeance.
Kovalev said this to the Dailymail.co.uk after the fight “He was a local champion. To be honest though, I’ve had harder fights in my career. I was ready for a hard fight.”
I didn’t expect it to be a hard fight, and predicted ahead of time that Kovalev would smash Cleverly to smithereens in the 4th. The problem was that Cleverly was a little hitting volume puncher with a career filled with weak opposition. Kovalev was all wrong for Cleverly.
I could understand Cleverly being cocky before the fight, because all those poor opponents he’d faced before taking this fight had elevated his confidence into the stratosphere, but he should have at least sparred one or two talented fighters before he made the decision to take this fight.
If Cleverly had taken on quality light heavyweight contender with power like Tavoris Cloud or Lucian Bute, then I think he would have decided that it wouldn’t have been a good idea to face a talent like Kovalev. Those guys likely would have given Cleverly nightmares with their sparring, and from there Cleverly would have likely come to the decision that facing Kovalev wasn’t a good idea.
Comments are closed.