Nathan Cleverly opponent annouced

[magnus]

How many of his big stars seem to be having warm up fights. Mitchell, Cleverly, Burns most likely.

Just tells me that Box notion are already running out of money and can't afford to bring in any decent names.

The channel always up against but these fights are not going to attract many new subscribers.

Exactly. How the hell do allegedly expect to entice people who haven't done so (unlike I, mug that I am) with this type of bullshit. It's a 90s Intercontinental match with the word "world" scrawled in front of it, in crayon.

[crusader]

Terrible opponent. I wasn't expecting anyone great, but Karpency? Really?!!?

[Bennyblanco]

Who?

[crusader]

Hilariously bad.

I was aghast when that Fanfana chap was mooted as an opponent, but he's a unified 3-weight world champ in comparison to this clown. All credit to Team Warren for finding someone this utterly hopeless - managed to exceed all of our wildest expectations. Will make the follow up all welsh world title match up against Enzo Macc that bit more mouthwatering.

Does this guy breach the Bobby Gunn watermark for pathetic defences?

Will be great to see/hear how Fwanks (Mouth) Organ, Steve Bunce, pretends this is anything other than a turd on a plate. (All for a measly £10 a month you mugs. Proper boxing fans have never had it so good)

No kidding. Fonfara-Clev looks like a super fight compared to this.

[observer1]

Just another Frank Fighter then. Pad his record and milk the title for all its worth,

[ashedward]

I wonder how well this will do in ticket sells ?I would of gone if he was fighting someone decent,I wont bother now

[gasman]

This is the type of matchmaking that will make me think twice about renewing my BN subs, it is garbage, total mismatch.

[exittored]

Exactly. How the hell do Allegedly channel expect to entice people who haven't done so (unlike I, mug that I am) with this type of bullshit. It's a 90s Intercontinental match with the word "world" scrawled in front of it, in crayon.

The strange thing is that we had better fights when the channel was free!

What we should have got is:

Feb 25th: Nathan Cleverley vs Toney Bellew - rematch of one of 2011's fights of year.
March 10th: Ricky Burns vs Kevin Mitchell - great domestic and world level fight.

Now that would have been enticing and i may well have subbed for 6 months just based on those 2 match-ups.

BUT what we've got or will get is:

Cleverley vs scrub 1
Mitchell vs scrub 2
Burns vs scrub 3
Bellew vs scrub 4

They have to make good match-ups now and get as many subs as possible or else the channel may not be around 6 months from now!

[Tykemania]

This guy is ranked 83rd in the world by Boxrec, and 19th in America????

Thoughts please?

well, my first reaction was that it'd be a great fight.

Providing Cleverley had both hands tied behind his back. Otherwise, a shocking match up - fighting a guy who lost clearly (almost humiliatingly?) to a guy you yourself murdered. Great thinking Batfwank!

I don't blame Cleverly for wanting to go slowly; he's young for a champion in the higher weight classes and, as Bellew showed, far from the finished article, so some more seasoning is reasonable. But I could think of a dozen better bets than this muppet!

[NazNaci1]

There are plenty of good fighters in this division. Warren however, won't pick those. As for Hopkins, your having a laugh if you think Warren is serious about matching Cleverly with anyone like that. This is the level Warren has in mind.

Defences in Cardiff, against guys Cleverly will beat equates to money for Warren. Warren doesn't give a s*** about us 'proper fans'. He never has. He is also crap at trying to justify this sort of match up as he just embarrasses himself.

[Tykemania]

There are plenty of good fighters in this division. Warren however, won't pick those. As for Hopkins, your having a laugh if you think Warren is serious about matching Cleverly with anyone like that. This is the level Warren has in mind.

Last fight out, Nathan got a tight as hell decision against a guy who, much as I like and rate him, had limited pro experience and was two fights off nearly losing to Ovill McKenzie. I suspect Fwank is hoping to go down the Calzaghe route - nurture him slowly against mediocre opposition hoping that he'll be awesome at 28.

As of right now, in one of the less packed divisions out there, there are at least ten fighters who'd eat him for breakfast.

[iamasadlittleboy]

WBA number 11, American Tommy Karpency, has a good record of 21 wins from 24 fights and 14 KO's & last year took Karo Murat - who Cleverly beat in Sept 2010 - the full twelve rounds. Cleverly says, 'Karpency looks like a tough fighter and he took Murat the distance last year and Murat gave me a hard fight.'

http://boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_ ... &cat=boxer

The Murat decision was fair but crazily wide and although Karpency is not bad at what he does, Cleverly should not be fighting a guy who has been beaten by someone that Cleverly has
already beaten. I know that Cleverly is being lined up for Hopkins and they don't want that fight to fall by the wayside, however, this is not a great fight and to be honest its not a good fight. The pace that Cleverly fights at will be too much for this kid and I can see him breaking him down late on

What about if it had been Campillo? Another former Murat victim...

[NazNaci1]

What about if it had been Campillo? Another former Murat victim...

2008-09-20 Germany L Karo Murat MD 12 113-115 115-115 113-115 EBU (European) super middleweight title.

So a hometown win for Murat there.....

2011-10-01 Germany D Karo Murat SD 12 115-113 111-117 114-114 IBF Inter-Continental light heavyweight title IBF Light Heavyweight Title Eliminator

Another fight in Germany and this time a draw. Tells us all we need to know..And Campilo is a former titlist who had his title blatantly stolen from him....And Karpency has accomplished? Oh thats right...he qualifies by virtue of the fact that he is 100% guaranteed to lose and therefore keeps this Cash Cow going...

[iamasadlittleboy]

What about if it had been Campillo? Another former Murat victim...

2008-09-20 Germany L Karo Murat MD 12 113-115 115-115 113-115 EBU (European) super middleweight title.

So a hometown win for Murat there.....

2011-10-01 Germany D Karo Murat SD 12 115-113 111-117 114-114 IBF Inter-Continental light heavyweight title IBF Light Heavyweight Title Eliminator

Another fight in Germany and this time a draw. Tells us all we need to know..And Campilo is a former titlist who had his title blatantly stolen from him....And Karpency has accomplished? Oh thats right...he qualifies by virtue of the fact that he is 100% guaranteed to lose and therefore keeps this Cash Cow going...

I never saw the first but Campillo was out on his feet late in the second one and a British referee would have waved it off =/. I'm not saying Campillo is bad (your right he was robbed against Shumenov) just the argument of Kap. losing to Murat shouldn't really be the key, the fact Kap has beaten no one of note should be the issue.

[NazNaci1]

The bottom line is, this opponent is poor. Very poor. Poorer than some of the names bandied around in earlier threads. Not Nathan's fault as he has bottle and WOULD fight anyone, he really would.

His Promoter is not someone who makes fighters better. He and his team do not improve fighters. What he does do is makes himself (first and foremost) money and money for his fighter. The rewards are greater elsewhere but so are the risks. Hence why we see this type of opponent lined up for a title shot, most probably in Cardiff.

[Bard of Boxrec]

I suppose FW is backed into a corner when he has a fighter so limited as Cleverley...

Does anyone think that a shot Enzo Macc would actually have a pretty good chance of knocking this guy out? Macc has been derailed by big punchers or pressure fighters that he couldn't put a dent in. Whereas Cleverley isn't a puncher, he has no defence and his chin is questionable.

Will this fight actually happen? Heard a lot about it, and it does make sense for FW (cash in Macc, push the 'all Welsh affair', hope that Macc is enough of a corpse for Cleverley to be able to beat etc)

[saturday_kid]

Joke fight, just to keep Fwankie with a "world" champion, joke opponent, so they can fill a "big" show on their telly channel.

To think Fwankie was slagging off other promoters then he makes this fight!

Stop ripping people off!

Also Cleverly should be ashamed, him and Burns need to realise by gibving the go ahead to fights like this (in Burns case, Laryea, Cook, his next 1) theyre ripping theyre own fans off.

[tonyevs]

Its a soft defence for sure. Nothing what you wouldn't really expect is it?

Thing is. Unlike the unfortunate Carl Froch, Cleverly has a top team working around him that will enable the fight to sell and make money for him.

What we'll prob see is a big name for Cleverly towards end of this year ... Froch hopefully!

[stujones]

Has anyone seen Karpency fight? Its a joke of a match up on paper, but has anyone seen him fight?

Campillo really shouldn't have been acceptable also if we are going down the "he shouldn't fight anyone who has lost to Murat route". Both fights with Murat were geniunally rediculously close - people who say Campillo got robbed in the rematch - well clearly didn't see the fight and its something similar to the calls that Byron Mitchell got robbed against Sven Ottke, or Murray got robbed against Sturm. Actually, in my opinion, in all 3 of these fights the judges were hard on the German based fighter.

Anyone seen Karpency vs Murat (I haven't) scores were 116-111 and thats including a KD against Karpency - so maybe Murat didn't have things entirely his own way. Murat would just about be acceptable as a "homecoming" defence - it was a fantastic fight last time, and one which Clev will comfortably win again. Anyone Murat has beaten, isn't acceptable.

[youngrell]

As a Welsh boxing fan this is really disappointing. Cleverly has waited long enough to get a fight back home in front of his fans and it could have been a great event with a better, acceptable opponent.

The problem is, FW can get away with it because, as much as we like to think the public won't buy the shit he's shoveling, they will. I got an excitable text from a mate last night "what are you doing on the 25 Feb? Cleverly is fighting in Cardiff!!", and that is exactly the type of folk who will be going, along with Clev die-hards of course!

It's sad, but it's true

[leforge]

Its a soft defence for sure. Nothing what you wouldn't really expect is it?

Thing is. Unlike the unfortunate Carl Froch, Cleverly has a top team working around him that will enable the fight to sell and make money for him.

What we'll prob see is a big name for Cleverly towards end of this year ... Froch hopefully!

Froch probably getting paid on time unlike some!

[MightyWarrior]

Now let's see if Boxing News steps up and calls this mismatch for what it is.....somehow I don't think they will....

[leforge]

Now let's see if Boxing News steps up and calls this mismatch for what it is.....somehow I don't think they will....

I dont think they will say anything about this fight at all might give the waffle its leading to a bigger fight in the summer!

[fizzjambo]

A slightly extreme reaction here, but understandable. Cleverly, whether we like it or not, is not World Class. He is though, probably, a top 20 level Light Heavyweight, maybe fringe top 10.

The point is that his best two perfromances are probably against Murat and Belew, each of whom are no better than (top level) European class. None of this is a critisism, he may well prove to be a top class 175lb fighter in the future, he certainly has a very watchable style.

The real problem is the combination of fragmented governing bodies, maliable rankings and the wide net of a champion being able to face a top 15 rather than top 10 challanger. This is not a true world title fight, but there is nothing wrong with that in the sense of the quality of opposition. It should sell fine in a small-ish arena for a home coming fight and given his struggles at times against Bellew it's not a bad opponent. It'll likely go a decent amount of rounds and hopefully see Cleverly progress in his development.

If the world scene was improved by having just one single belt then the European title would mean far more, Cleverly would have defended it against Murat, Mohammedi, Kuziemski and Bellew and would probably be looking at another defence against a Campillo or Gutnecht. A better and more meaningful fight.

[Bomber 1]

So much for moving onwards and upwards?? So this guy is better than me? I'll say it again, I'll happily go to Cardiff! I believe it's what the fans wanna see?? You tell me?