Cleverly making a mistake in facing Fonfara

By Boxing News - 06/28/2015 - Comments

cleverly777By Scott Gilfoid: This October, former WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (29-2, 15 KOs) will be taking a major risk in facing #2 WBC, #3 WBA, #4 WBO, #6 IBF light heavyweight contender Andrzej Fonfara (27-3, 16 KOs) in a fight that still doesn’t have an exact date and venue.

It’s still unclear why Cleverly’s promoter Eddie Hearn has decided to match Cleverly up with such a dangerous opponent like this. Is he throwing #11 WBC Cleverly to the wolves or does he actually believe that Cleverly is good enough to beat Fonfara?

It’s so out of character for Hearn to match one of his fighter’s tough like this. I mean, when you see how soft Hearn’s other fighters are matched like Anthony Joshua, Tony Bellew, and Martin Murray, it just seems very strange. Cleverly was beaten last November by Bellew, so maybe this is Hearn’s way of making Cleverly show his worth by putting him in a sink or swim type fight.

I think it’s a good thing for Hearn to match Cleverly this way, because if he gets whipped by Fonfara like he did against Sergey Kovalev, then Hearn can at least cut his losses and dump Cleverly in order to trim down his Matchroom Sport roster to get rid of the dead weight. It’s better for Hearn to focus on the guys that are going someplace than wasting time on fighters that don’t have the talent to win a world title.

Hearn wants to match Cleverly against WBA World light heavyweight champion Juergen Braehmer next year. Well, Hearn can spare himself the headache of trying to make the Cleverly-Braehmer fight if he gets whipped by Fonfara. I mean, there’s no way that Braehmer will agree to fight someone coming off of a knockout loss to Fonfara.

“The Juergen Braehmer fight was one we were very close to taking but just felt that after his big win against [Julio Cesar] Chavez, Fonfara was the perfect fight on the world stage,” Hearn said via Matchroom Sport. “We are working with his team on the date, expected to be in October, and will release news shortly.”

Fonfara’s career is really blossoming after his win over Chavez Jr. last April. Fonfara is now ranked high, and in position for another payday fight against Stevenson or perhaps Kovalev. The unfortunate thing about it is Fonfara has little chance of beating those guys. He doesn’t have enough power or talent to beat Stevenson and Kovalev, but he does have the kind of talent to trounce the contenders like Cleverly and Chavez Jr.

If Cleverly loses this fight to Fonfara, it’s going to put Cleverly in a position where he’ll need to make a decision about his career. He can move up to cruiserweight – and have the same problems as he had before – or he can stay at light heavyweight and be content with just being a contender instead of a world champion. Of course, Cleverly can also retire. That’s always an option as well if he can’t deal with not ever being a world champion again.



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