Nathan Cleverly v Andrzej Fonfara @Light Heavyweight predictions. Oct 16

He has although I'm not sure if being 'Sergey'd' hasn't destroyed his confidence beyond repair. I'd pick the prime pre Kovalev Cleverly to UD Fonfara no question, but this version of him could easily lose to him and even via stoppage. The fact that it's in Chicago obviously works against him too and limits his chances considerably if it's a close one.

In addition to taking on a beast like Kovalev in a voluntary defense, something which very few would've done, Cleverly went into the lion's den in Liverpool twice to face Bellew in front of his home fans, the first of which when he [Cleverly] was the WBO world champion. He also went into that one with a rib injury after Chris Eubank Jr. cracked it in sparring a couple of weeks before the fight.

Don't forget WBO champ Juergen Braehmer pulled out of fighting Cleverly numerous times too.

And Cleverly went over to the US and put a whooping on Shawn Kirk, flooring him numerous times and stopping him in the 8th. Kirk might not be much but in his previous outing he'd lasted the full 12 against Canadian-based Colombian prospect Eleider Alvarez and as far as I'm aware Alvarez couldn't put him over and he can bang a bit too.

He handled Murat and Karpency better than anyone else too. If he can recapture that form and confidence, and it's a big if at this stage, then I think he can definitely win this. He did look awful in the Bellew rematch though. His confidence was clearly gone going into that one.

 

I thought it was a bad idea too. I first became aware of Kovalev and downloaded and watched every fight of his that was available after it had been announced he was set to fight Sillakh, this was back in April 2012 not when they eventually did get it on in November the following year. Sillakh ended up fighting Grachev instead. And I'd been really impressed by Kovalev's performances against Lionell Thompson and Campillo. It was an absolutely crazy idea for Cleverly to take him on for a voluntary looking back in hindsight. He deserves a lot of respect for doing so though.

I also think it was beyond crazy for him to take on Makubu in his CW debut too. Luckily that one never happened though.

 

Fonfara has been doing ''goalie workout' and ''surf yoga'' for this fight hopefully he's not doing steroids anymore too or Nathan is in serious trouble.

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