Cleverly vs. Karpency: Nathan really needs to start facing better opposition after this fight

By Michael Collins: WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (23-0, 11 KO’s) isn’t being pushed too hard in the soft matchmaking for his fight against the unranked Tommy Karpency (21-2, 14 KO’s) on February 25th at the Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff, Wales, UK.

The fight will be aired by EPIX in the United States, which may be one reason why the American Karpency was selected for Cleverly to fight. However, Cleverly can do a lot better than this and he really needs to because his last opponent Tony Bellew was ranked No.13 by the World Boxing Organization, and Karpency isn’t even ranked in the top 15 by the WBO.

Is Cleverly going to be always picking from the bottom when he’s defending his WBO strap? I mean, I thought things were bad when Jurgen Brahmer had the WBO belt and he too was picking from the bottom of the pile to defend his title, but Cleverly has started in where Brahmer left off in combing the lower ranks for opponents to defend his title against.

At the same time, he’s talking about wanting to fight WBC light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins. Let me be the one to break this to Cleverly: You don’t get fights against the likes of Hopkins if you’re not developing your name by facing well known quality fighters instead of guys pulled from the bottom of the deck.

Cleverly seriously, seriously needs to step it up because it’s a crime to see how poorly this guy is being matched. How about closing your eyes and picking anyone at random from the top 15, and I bet you Cleverly will choose someone leagues better than the guys been facing.

I have to admit, Cleverly looked god awful in his fight and I think he didn’t deserve to get the ‘W’ over Bellew. Cleverly made a mediocre fighter look like a super star, and that’s really telling if you ask me. I don’t know but maybe Cleverly is better off going after the low ranked guys because at least he’ll be able to hold onto the his title, which the WBO gave to him outside of the ring, for a little while longer.