Nathan Cleverly: analysis of his style, strengths, and weaknesses

I'd say his overall style is somewhere between boxer/puncher and volume fighter, in truth its a mesh of both.

His offense is impressive. Decent jab (not a fight dominater but he uses it to set up attacks), nice right hand, has knocked out a guy with an uppercut, and he's known for employing a lot of bodywork.

Physically he's fairly well blessed, he has better than average speed even at world level in my opinion. He moves pretty well and his handspeed is good. His engine is also terrific, he throws a lot of punches and has shown he can go the 12 round distance.

As for his power, its developed from somewhere near feather fisted to accumulative power at the level he's been fighting. Since moving to light heavy from 168 and with the maturity and strength thats come with it, he's really developed his power and is on a knockout streak. It wouldn't be impossible to think it could get even better since he's so young, he's bound to get stronger. But at the moment if you watch his last fight he's more a guy that is going to break people down rather than clean knock them out.

Weaknesses are the typical ones. Defence. He throws a lot of punches so by nature he gives a lot of opportunities, nobody has been quite good enough to exploit them on a regular basis. He can get wild and leave himself massively open. He lacks a transition game, he's either guarding himself or throwing punches, nothing inbetween. Not a lot of head movement going on. Power as I touched on, needs to develop to be a factor at the next level. Inside game, I don't think we're quite convinced with it yet. He hasn't had to use it a lot so we havn't seen much evidence of how he'll fair in close, I'd put it down as a question mark.

That's my take on him.

 

Another thing worth noting is at the moment he's in university taking exams as the TV coverage constantly reminds us viewers. It's likely when he's finished taking his degree he'll focus full-time on boxing which is an exciting prospect considering how well he has done so far.

He also wears a really ****ing stupid headband in his entrances and I think I can speak for all of us when I say I wish he'd stop atsch

 

Good points well made squire!

 

i always wonder how much influence his time in the calzaghe camp has made to his style.

 

yeh TFFP got it spot on. One thing I worry about Clev which someone mentioned to me the other day, maybe he thinks he is a puncher now. I cant see him scoring many knockout victorys beyond this point and if he doesnt realise that he could get in trouble.

as TFFP mentioned, he has natural athletic abilty and stanima which all the top top fighters of the past 15 years have had (mayweather, pacquiao, roy jones, calzaghe). I am not comparing him to them just pointing at it will help.

he has also sparred over 500 rounds with Calzaghe in his prime, the best super middleweight ever and ring champion at light heavy. he probably wont fight anyone better than that in his whole career.

 

I'm sure he will Rob :good

 

sure he will what?

 

Fight someone better than Joe :good

 

dunno Calzaghe is top 10 all time european fighter.

 

I would probably disagree with that if I could be arsed to think about it

 

The touchpaper has been lit now

 

:good **** hot analysis. What I've bold/underlined is the one glaring weakness I noted. Something he'll have to amend.

 

atsch

Sorry for the disrespectful emoticon Rob, but he ain't. I'm not a hater either, I'm a realist:good

Although I agree with your point that Cleverly will probably never trade punches with someone as good as Calzaghe.

 

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