Cleverly badly wants rematch with Kovalev

cleverly677By Scott Gilfoid: Last month former WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (26-1, 12 KO’s) faced his first good opponent in his career in Sergey Kovalev (22-0-1, 20 KO’s) and Cleverly was then promptly stopped in the 4th round by the hard hitting Russian. Cleverly is now saying he wants to face Kovalev again in a rematch, and he wants it to be his next fight in early 2014 if Kovalev will agree to it.

I’m not sure if Cleverly should take this fight because he looked like a punching bag against Kovalev the entire short 4-round fight. About the best that Cleverly could do was throw jabs, and that wasn’t going to be enough to hold back a puncher like Kovalev.

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Calzaghe: Cleverly needed to use his speed against Kovalev

calzaghe444By Scott Gilfoid: It seems that a lot of former WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly’s followers are coming out of the woodwork with their second guessing of his fight tactics in his quick 4th round destruction against Sergey Kovalev (22-0-1, 20 KO’s) last week.

Joe Calzaghe is the latest one who feels that all Cleverly had to do in order to beat Kovalev was use his speed, and he would have gotten the job done. Tony Bellew is another one thinks that all Cleverly had to do was turn on the speed, and Kovalev would have been beaten.

Calzaghe said to the South Wales Argus “I felt he [Kovalev] was very slow and looked beatable.

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Bellew: Cleverly would have beaten Kovalev if he used his speed and movement

cleverly4544By Scott Gilfoid: Tony Bellew thinks former WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly would have beaten undefeated Sergey Kovalev last Saturday night had Cleverly chosen to flash his hand speed, and use his mobility against the tough Russian. Bellew believes Cleverly fought the wrong game plan choosing not to move a lot, and box.

Bellew said on his social media site “I stand by my original judgment of Kovalev. He’s very strong, but look closely. His power covers many mistakes. He won’t be the champ long. I’m pretty sure they’ll have a rematch clause in there. If he [Cleverly] used his speed and movement, he would have won IMO [in my opinion]. You don’t bang with a banger.”

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Cleverly thought he was doing well against Kovalev before getting hurt

cleverly677By Scott Gilfoid: Former WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (26-1, 12 KO’s) thinks he won the 2nd round and was en route to winning the 3rd round in his fight against Sergey Kovalev (22-0-1, 20 KO’s) last Saturday night when tragedy struck with Kovalev hurting Cleverly in the 3rd.

Kovalev ended up dropping Cleverly twice in the 3rd round, and then once more in the 4th round to get the TKO.

Cleverly said to the southwalesargus “I thought I’d just let Kovalev have the first round and I thought I edged the second round and started to win the 3rd round, and then I got caught.

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Cleverly not sure if he’ll continue his career

cleverly777By Scott Gilfoid: It seems that former WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly’s 4th round TKO loss to the talented Russian knockout artist Sergey Kovalev (22-0-1, 20 KO’s) last Saturday night in front of Cleverly’s own fans at the has negatively Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom has effected Cleverly more than what some people originally thought it would.

Cleverly, 26, is hinting that he could retire from boxing after his loss to Kovalev. Cleverly is going away on vacation, and he’s going to do a lot of soul searching to decision whether to continue fighting or wrap up his career and move onto other things. Cleverly has a math degree, and he can make a lot of money if he goes back to school to become an engineer. He doesn’t need boxing.

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The Weekend’s Results

barker100By Rusty Nate: It was certainly an amazing weekend of action. I don’t think the results as they happened were a big surprise although if the results were reversed and happened the opposite way I don’t really think there would have been that much shock.

First up was Nathan Cleverly (26-1-0) defending his WBO World Title against the chilling puncher Sergey Kovalev (22-0-1). Well this result as I mentioned was not overly a surprise in who won the fight. I have thought for some time that Cleverly is a good solid fighter but his work rate is slow and methodical and he is hittable. This was proved in the fight with the relatively inexperienced (at the time) Tony Bellew.

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Cleverly’s promoter hasn’t made decision yet on Kovalev rematch

UEFA Women's Under 17's Draw(Photo credit: Main Events) By Scott Gilfoid: Frank Warren, the promoter for former WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (26-1, 12 KO’s), hasn’t decided if they’ll look for a rematch with Russian KO artist Sergey Kovalev (22-0-1, 20 KO’s) after Cleverly was blown apart in 4 rounds last Saturday night in front of his own loyal Welsh fans at the Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom.

There wasn’t a rematch clause in the contract, so Kovalev can move on if he chooses, but you’ve to figure that Cleverly can a rematch if Warren makes the decision to get Kovalev back to the UK.

It would be a team thing where Cleverly and Warren would both agree that the Kovalev rematch was the right thing to do.

Warren said to the Daily Mail “We’ll see what happens with regards to any rematch.

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Kovalev: I’ve had harder fights in my career than Cleverly

cleverly4544By 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.

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Cleverly should have been stopped in the 3rd by Kovalev

cleverly11By Scott Gilfoid: If you saw WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (26-1, 12 KO’s) get stopped tonight by Sergey Kovalev (22-0-1, 20 KO’s) in the 4th round, you might be wondering why the referee Terry O’Connor didn’t officially stop the fight in the 3rd round after Cleverly had been knocked down twice.

Shortly after the second knockdown, it looked like O’Conner was in the act of stopping the fight, but then he let it go on. It seemed like an odd move, because it looked clearly like the referee was waiving off the fight, but then bell rung a second later, and the referee let the fight continue. It was very strange.

Thankfully, the referee not stopping the fight in the 3rd didn’t have any change in the outcome of the fight other than causing Cleverly to take a little more punishment in getting stopped a round later. But it was still unsettling to have the fight continued when the referee seemed to be stopping it. I guess referees can change their minds.

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Sergey Kovalev destroys Cleverly in 4th round TKO!!!

clev8By Jim Dower: WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (26-1, 12 KO’s) came out of the blocks fighting timidly tonight and he paid for it big time in getting dominated and stopped by the hard hitting Sergey Kovalev (22-0-1, 20 KO’s) in the 4th round at the Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom.

Cleverly came out fighting defensively by staying on the outside in what looked to be in a strategy to have the Russian wear himself down. However, in the 3rd round that strategy fell apart when Kovalev nailed Cleverly with a right hand that sent Cleverly staggering backwards. Kovalev then dropped Cleverly with a chopping right hand to the head.

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