Nathan Cleverly vs Tommy Karpency: Cleverly Promises to be Model Pro

by Thomas Hill on Feb 21, 2012 6:00 PM EST in Boxing News Analysis

Nathan Cleverly is determined to take the attention away from Haye and Chisora and win on Saturday night in a professional manner. (Photo by Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images)

You can pretty much guarantee that anyone involved in boxing at the moment has spoken about/ is talking about the recent events in Germany. You may have seen my opinion on BLH or the contrasting opinion of Oli Goldstein or the grovelling apologises from both Chisora and Haye.

Basically what I am trying to say is everyone is talking about it, and even in a recent interview with Skysports Nathan Cleverly has given his thoughts about it.

Unfortunately the events from last Saturday have overshadowed Cleverly's final preparations for his fight against Karpency this Saturday.

The 25-year-old Welshman is keen to impress both in the ring and outside it.

"I was surprised at the extent of the events and how much ferocity was involved. It's a shame, it was not a good day for British boxing. The fighters have to learn from that. I think a lifetime ban is way over the top. It only needs a small punishment to learn the lessons from what happened.

People are going to be looking for people to lead by example. I have a chance to do that, conduct myself in a professional manner as always and leave my talking for inside and not outside. It can be easy to get dragged into a scuffle, but I am pretty sure that is not going to happen, we will have the utmost respect for each other.

People will be looking for me to carry the sport in a professional manner, which I intend to do. I will be myself and I am sure it will be a professional performance. Karpency seems to be a good guy, he is a professional fighter, he seems a nice guy so I don't see a clash of personalities that will cause uproar."

Cleverly himself isn't a stranger to press-conference bust-ups when he clashed with Tony Bellew before their fight (which didn't happen in the end). The Welshman was quick to say the two events weren't similiar:

"When you are disciplined it is straightforward (to keep control of your emotions). You leave your aggression for the gym and for fight night. Sometimes there is a clash, with me and Bellew we were both unbeaten and we both thought we were the best. We said things which wound the other up, and it flew off the handle a little bit, but it was controlled aggression and it did go over the top.

It created a lot of hype around the fight. I enjoyed it because it was different and I am sure Tony Bellew enjoyed it at times."

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Cleverly's next opponent

Since there is basically zero hype outside of Wales for Cleverly’s current opponent, I’d like to talk a minute about Nathan Cleverly. I will say he got strung along by Juergen Braehmer for years, so I am willing to cut him a little bit of slack.
Despite winning the Interim title in December of 2010, Aleksy Kuziemski was his first official mandatory defense in May of 2011.
Then he had an optional defense vs Tony Bellew, rated #13 in October of 2011.
So he had to mandatory defend his belt by February of 2012… and instead of doing that.. he gets to optionally defend against Tommy Karpency, generously ranked #10 at Cruiserweight.
So, he hasn’t been stripped.. why? Now that I have asked the rhetorical question I don’t expect an answer to, I look forward to him facing Dmitry Sukhotsky, his #1 mandatory, sometime in June, assuming no injuries or upsets.

by cheetahpants on Feb 22, 2012 3:05 PM EST reply actions