By Michael Collins: WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (23-0, 11 KO’s) will be fighting Tommy Karpency (21-2-1, 14 KO’s) on February 25th at the Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff, Wales, UK.
Cleverly, 24, could have been matched against a better opponent but the idea was for him to look good and impress his home boxing fans in Wales. Karpency, who isn’t even ranked in the top 15 by the World Boxing Organization, fit the requirements of being someone that Cleverly can beat without too much struggle.
Cleverly may win the fight without having to seal any risk of losing, but this is the wrong guy to be fighting if Cleverly wants to really shine. Karpency, 26, has a fighting style where he falls forward when throwing his shots and often ends up in a bear hug with his opponents.
He’s kind of like Bernard Hopkins with the diving in approach to punching. His work rate won’t be enough for him to beat Cleverly or even come close to beating him, but if he sticks to his pattern of falling forward into a clinching, Karpency could make the fight all but unwatchable for boxing fans. Karpency isn’t someone I would have handpicked if I wanted my fighter to get both an easy win and look good at the same time.
Cleverly needs to start facing better opposition than this. Seriously, he talks about wanting to fight the best in the light heavyweight division but then he turns around and fights low ranked fighters over and over again. Cleverly’s last fight was against No.13 ranked Tony Bellew.
You can give Cleverly a pass on that fight because Bellew turned out to be someone that could actually fight and well deserved a draw but got the shaft by the judges. But there’s no excuse for Cleverly now facing a guy that’s not ranked in the top 15 by the WBO. That just seems wrong. He fought a low ranked last time but now he’s going even lower in finding someone not even ranked in the top tier by the WBO.