Nathan Cleverly is going to need to drop a ton of weight to get down to 175 for his next fight on April 11th in Lees. He’s moving from cruiserweight back down to light heavyweight where he hopes to get a crack at WBA World light heavyweight champion Jurgen Braehmer in the near future. That fight obviously won’t happen on April 11th, but that’s the direction Cleverly is being steered in.
First, however, he’s going to need to lose 25 pounds to get down to 175. This isn’t just 25 pounds of fat though. This is 25 pounds of muscle that Cleverly slowly put on in order to move up to cruiserweight. He won two out of his three fights in that weight class, but after his lethargic performance in losing to Tony Bellew last November, Cleverly decided he should move back down to light heavyweight.
The kind of weight that Cleverly will be taking off is similar to the weight that Roy Jones Jr melted off when he moved down from heavyweight to return to the light heavyweight division to face Antonio Tarver. The result was Jones never looking the same again in that weight class, and getting knocked out by Tarver.
“I made the decision to move back down quite quickly,” Cleverly told the Dailymail.co.uk. “For me personally this is my last chance to win a world title. I want a good level of opponent [in April] and then straight to a world title. Braehmer is the target, there’s plenty of history there.”
With Cleverly’s promoter Eddie Hearn, he’ll very likely be able to make the Cleverly vs. Braehmer fight, even though Cleverly probably doesn’t deserve to skip over guys like Artur Beterbiev for an undeserved title shot.
After all, even if Cleverly does beat whoever Hearn drags out there for him to fight on April 11th, he was still beaten recently by Bellew. That right there should mean that Cleverly should sit on the sidelines while more deserving fighters like Beterbiev get a shot at Braehmer’s title before him. But the chances of Beterbiev getting an optional title shot against Braehmer are pretty slim. He’s just too dangerous. The only way Beterbiev will likely get a fight against Braehmer is if he becomes his mandatory.
Cleverly will likely be very weak on April 11th, but Hearn won’t match him tough because it’s his first fight back to the light heavyweight division.
