Cleverly: I’m going to rip Braehmer’s title from him

By Boxing News - 09/01/2016 - Comments

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By Scott Gilfoid: Former WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (29-3, 15 KOs) a and WBA World 175lb champion Juergen Braehmer (48-2, 35 KOs) took part in a press conference on Thursday to promote their October 1 fight at the Jahnsportforum in Neubrandenburg, Germany.

It’s hard to argue that Cleverly, 29, is deserving of a world title fight at this point in his career simply because he’s lost two out of his last three fights and isn’t ranked in the top 15 by any of the sanctioning bodies right now.

That’ll obviously change as the fight gets closer to Oct.1, because the sanctioning bodies have a way of placing fighters into the top 15 when they’re signed for an important fight regardless of how unsuccessful they might have been leading up to the fight.

The 29-year-old Cleverly expects to take the aging 37-year-old southpaw Braehmer’s title from him next month in front of his own fans. It’s going to be tough or Cleverly to try and do that though because he can’t punch, and he needs Braehmer to stand in place so that he can use his high volume punch attack to get the better of him.

‘’This fight is my destiny,’’ said Cleverly. ‘’Juergen has been fantastic for German boxing, but it’s time for a young lion to come and rip that title from him. He’s 37 years old and hopefully this fight will mark the end of his career.’’

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Cleverly lost his last fight to Andrzej Fonfara by a 12 round unanimous decision last October at the UIC Pavilion in Chicago, Illinois. It was a decent performance from Cleverly with the way that he stood in the pocket and traded with the harder hitting Fonfara for 12 rounds.

Cleverly still lose the fight through due to him not having enough pop in his punches. Just why Cleverly hasn’t fought since that loss is the big question. He’ll have been out of the ring for an entire year by the time he steps foot inside the ring to fight Braehmer next month. I think it’s stupid.

Why would Cleverly stay out of the ring for an entire year following a good effort in losing to Fonfara? It seems to me that Cleverly should have been fighting as much as possible after the Fonfara fight in order to take advantage of his good performance. We didn’t see that though.

‘’The UK is leading the way in World boxing,’’ said Cleverly’s promoter Eddie Hearn. ‘’We have fourteen World Champions, and on October 1, we will have one more. Nathan has matured, he knows what he wants and that’s to become a two-time World Champion.’’

Instead of Hearn crowing about all the world champions in the UK, he should be trying to figure out how Cleverly can win his next fight against Braehmer, because I don’t see him having a chance of winning this fight. Cleverly does not match up well against Braehmer due to his lack of power. The rust factor makes things even worse for Cleverly.

With Nathan not fighting for an entire yea, it puts him in a position where he’s going to need to overcome not only the rust, but also the power and skills advantage that Braehmer has going for him in this fight. Braehmer is the stronger guy, the more talented guy, and the more experienced guy. Braehmer is also a southpaw, and he’s fighting at home. The only thing that Cleverly has going for him is his high work rate. But having a good work rate only helps if you’re fighting a stationary guy, not someone that moves a lot like Braehmer.

It’ll be surprising if Cleverly doesn’t get beaten in this fight because Braehmer is a big step up from Fonfara. Cleverly does not have the kind of talent that will enable him to beat Braehmer unless the German fighter got old all of a sudden. Cleverly was beaten by Tony Bellew by a 12 round split decision in their rematch in November 2014. It was a poor performance from Cleverly because he fought like he didn’t want to get hit. He appeared to be afraid to engage in this fight, and it made it easy for Bellew to win.

I can’t see this fight going any other way than a one-sided 12 round decision win for Braehmer. I don’t see him knocking out Cleverly, because he has a pretty good chin, but I do see him losing badly to the German fighter.