By Scott Gilfoid: Former WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (26-1, 12 KO’s) thinks there’s a good chance that he’ll be getting a world title shot at cruiserweight by the end of 2014. Cleverly, 26, was smashed recently in 4 rounds by Sergey Kovalev last August, and this gave Cleverly the idea to move up in weight to cruiserweight to try and duplicate the same kind of success that he had at 175.
Cleverly will be fighting for the first time at cruiserweight this month against Daniel Ammann (29-5-1, 6 KO’s) on November 30th at the Copper Box Arena, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Hackney Wick, London, United Kingdom.
Cleverly said to Sky Sports “I’d assume that towards the back end of 2014, we could be looking at a world title shot…The loss, that was the trigger point. It’s happened, it’s a blessing in disguise and now I will become a world champion at cruiserweight.”
I don’t doubt that Cleverly will get a world title shot by the end of 2014. He’s got a powerful promoter that can make things happen, so I see Cleverly definitely getting a world title shot against one of the cruiserweight belt holders. What I do have serious doubts about is Cleverly winning a world title at cruiserweight.
I don’t see any easy marks for Cleverly to beat in order to pick up one of the straps, and it’s not likely that Cleverly will luck out again with one of the sanctioning bodies giving him the title outside of the ring. That was a real lucky thing that the World Boxing Organization did that at 175 for Cleverly, because I think he would have lost to the prior WBO champion Jurgen Braehmer if the two of them had faced each other. But at cruiserweight, I don’t see anyone that Cleverly can beat.
Here are the current cruiserweight champions:
Marco Huck – WBO
Denis Lebedev – WBA
Yoan Pablo Hernandez – IBF
Krzystof Wlodarczyk – WBC
Out of all of those guys, I’d have to say that the southpaw Hernandez is the weakest of the lot. He’s shown to have a shin and stamina problems in the past. However, Hernandez does well against weak punchers, and he’d got good power of his own. Cleverly would be in a really tough fight if he were to face Hernandez because he doesn’t have the power to get him out of there. Herandez would likely do the same thing to Cleverly that Kovalev did. It might not be as quick as him, but I think it would definitely end badly for Cleverly.
Lebedev is coming off of a real beating at the hands of Guillermo Jones, so there’s a slight chance that he might not be the same fighter he was. However, for Cleverly to be able to test whether Lebedev is washed up, he’d have to take a massive amount of his big power shots to get him to the deep end of the fight. I rate Lebedev’s power as being every bit as good as Kovalev’s. In other words, Cleverly won’t likely make it past the 4th round against Lebedev.
Wlodarczyk is simply too strong for Cleverly, and he would bludgeon him into submission within 6 rounds.
I see Cleverly’s experiment at cruiserweight ending badly for him with him getting knocked out once he steps it up against one of the world champions or top contenders. Cleverly will likely have to make the decision to either move back down to 175 or retire. I think Cleverly should stay at 175 and wait out 48-year-old Hopkins to go after his IBF title once he retires or Cleverly can go after WBA champion Beibut Shumenov, because he’s not looked impressive.
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