Many have referred to Nathan Cleverly as the man to replace Joe Calzaghe at the forefront of Welsh boxing, and now we’ll all finally get to see how good he really is. On May 21st Cleverly finally gets the chance to become a world champion, when he steps into the ring for his long awaited fight with German Juergen Braehmer. The highly anticipated WBO Light Heavyweight fight will be the main event of Frank Warren’s Sky Box office show held at the O2 Arena in London and also features James DeGale on the undercard against George Groves.
Braehmer vs. Cleverly Preview
The 24-year-old Cleverly from Cefn Forest is the current interim champion and with his perfect 21-0 (10 KOs) record has gotten British boxing fans very excited. Cleverly stands at 6’1” and with an impressive 74” reach. He’s still improving, which was shown in an incredibly disappointing fight last time out against tricky Frenchman Nadjib Mohammedi, in which Cleverly looked lost during the middle rounds before staging a late round rally, he’s still improving. Still, we almost certainly haven’t seen the best of Cleverly yet, despite his impressive showing against Karo Murat in September of last year (and the even more impressive performance against Danny McIntosh in 2009).
Cleverly, like friend and former sparring partner Joe Calzaghe, has shown brilliantly fast hands and the fan-friendly willingness for enjoying a tear up that the fans seem to like watching. Against Braehmer this could be dangerous, as Cleverly lacks the punching power to keep a tough guy off him and will have to rely on his other attributes. Also like Calzaghe, Cleverly has shown a tremendous engine, he has solid technical ability and can move, though he hasn’t shown it in recent fights. Formerly trained by Calzaghe’s father-trainer Enzo, Cleverly is now trained by his own father, and has become a little bit more confrontational in the ring. This isn’t necessarily a plus though, as he has sadly shown he can get frustrated and has a somewhat hot head.
The German Braehmer is 36-2 (29 KOs) and is by far the hardest test of Cleverly’s career to date. The German is technically somewhat limited and has been out boxed in the past by Mario Veit and by former WBA champion Hugo Hernan Garay. He has never been stopped in 36 fights and he isn’t the type of fighter you want to trade with. His left hands are especially dangerous and his opening round blow out of Antonio Brancalion showed the substantial power difference between Cleverly and Braehmer (Cleverly needed 5 rounds to score a TKO). Impressively, it took just 12 seconds for Braehmer to drop Brancalion and just 83 seconds to force the stoppage after 4 knockdowns. For Breahmer, his power is his great strength, and unlike many European fighters he doesn’t seem to mind unleashing it.
Braehmer’s WBO title reign started off as an interim titleholder until Zsolt Erdei moved to the Cruiserweight division. He has defended the full WBO title twice, firstly out pointing Dmitry Sukhotsky and then stopping Mariano Nicolas Plotinsky in the 5th round. Out of the ring problems have plagued Braehmer in recent years and almost scuttled this bout. In addition to his legal issues, he has also had one bout canceled this year already, his unification match with Beibut Shumenov, which was called off due to illness. The recent inactivity certainly hurts him here, and may give Cleverly an advantage.
Braehmer vs. Cleverly Prediction
Although the general expectation seems to be for Cleverly to win – in fact he’s a 4/7 favorite with the bookies – he’s certainly stepping up a class and needs to show a huge improvement from his recent bouts. Standing toe to toe with Braehmer would be suicide for Cleverly who doesn’t hit hard enough and probably isn’t mature enough to take Braehmer’s powerful shots. If Cleverly uses his head and fights at range, he can certainly out-box the German, though he hasn’t got a chance at out-slugging him in a fight that will be a turning point in the career of the young Welshman.
Having seen what I’ve seen of Cleverly I can’t help but feel he’ll get involved in a tear up and eat one of Braehmer’s hurtful left hands that will buzz him in the middle rounds and start to see him unfold. I have a feeling Cleverly will be dropped and eventually stopped around 9 rounds in an enthralling, back-and-forth battle.
Prediction: Braehmer TKO 9
