Can Adam Booth improve Nathan Cleverly?

His corner work for haye vs mormeck was excellent, they had fully expected haye to be knocked down.

Cant fault booth at all.

Cleverley wouldn't gel with booth imo, I think he would flourish back with enzo calzaghe who would get the most out of his work rate and speed.

 

Not saying he's bad he's good at what he does with his fighters but i think for other fighters he may not be suitable.

 

I'm not sure, I don't think Booth has the varied body of work that would give us any kind of reasonable basis to comment on his overall abilities to train fighters apart from the fact he's astute at coming up with the occasional gameplan.

He did what worked for David Haye given his strengths/weaknesses, but its arguable whether some of the similar tactics had been working for Groves before he scraped a fortunate win. I don't think that win really erases the unconvincing nature of Groves for me personally. Plus we just have not seen Booth with a wide range of fighting styles. It's pretty similar to how Joe Gallagher always seems to have similar types (up until Quigg perhaps), these guys are just not like the top Americans that have been there and done it all so its hard to just come out with whether they're a great option.

 

I agree T, I don't call employing the same tactics over and over being astute. He's found a way how to win fights. Other then that we'll see how good with Groves development in next 12 months.

I wouldn't call the tactics for Anderson particularly astute they basically created the problems. Booth said it was cos Groves 'slugged with a slugger' that's bull**** he struggled cos he backed up to ropes far to easy and wasted energy with ridiculous movements.

Groves won that on sheer heart and Anderson folding for various reasons.

 

Without sounding too much like 'NO MAS' I think Tibbs is the only guy I'd be fairly confident in suggesting for pretty much any British fighter. He's had a wide range of fighters, particularly some decent boxer/punchers and he's very, very experienced.

The rest are either inexperienced, have limited exposure to a wide range of styles or are just plain bad.

 

I think he could improve Cleverly's in-ring discipline for sure, but Cleverly's two major flaws (footwork and defence) aren't areas that I believe The Dark One can solve.

Given his relative lack of experience in coaching different kinds of fighters it's obviously difficult to say, but Cleverly certainly fits into the kill or be killed mould which typified Haye at cruiser, before he turned into the ugly duckling, running around the ring throwing nothing and waving his arms about.

Booth seems a bit scientific, counting the number of punches his fighter throws sometimes, whereas Nathan is in the Calzaghe mode, throw three for every one that lands on you, eat right hands for breakfast and march forward.

I'm not sure that the 20 punches per round style would really work, considering he's an attritional fighter, it's a bit like trying to get Ricky Hatton to shoulder roll and throw right hand counters in the pocket. Not happening.

If I had to pick one trainer for him in the world I'd pick Beristain, and give him some DVD's of Rafael Marquez to watch. That's the kind of style he ought to be trying to replicate if he wants to reach the very top. Thudding jab and a variety of right hand shots.

At the minute there doesn't seem to be too much thought behind his work, he's winning fights on heart alone. One of these days he'll come up against a superior technician (he arguably already has) and come up short.

 

Everytime I see Booth & Groves it's like watching a Dad & a naughty kid whose watching everything he's saying. Cleverley needs to move trainer to progress his career, but seems to love home comforts. I'm not sure Booth is the right man though.