In the biggest fight on British soil this coming weekend unbeaten Welshman Nathan Cleverly (25-0, 12) defends his WBO Light Heavyweight title against mandatory contender Robin Krasniqi (39-2, 15). The bout, the headline fight at Wembley appears to be a good one on paper though with promoter Frank Warren attempting to prove he's still a big force in British boxing this may not have been the match up he'd have wanted Cleverly to be in, though it does look rather interesting, on paper at least.
With Krasniqi, a 26 year old German having almost 40 wins to his name it's fair to say he's not the worst fighter on the planet, though it's hard to really understand how the WBO have come to the idea that he's the #1 contender (then again with the WBO lets just say nothing shocks us any more). Despite his rather odd ranking he's certainly been on an excellent run since January 2006 winning 38 straight fights and claiming the very lightly regarded WBO European Light Heavyweight title (I guess that explains the ranking!).
Whilst Krasniqi's winning run has, at least in terms of raw numbers, been very impressive when you actually dig a little deeper you'll notice the type of guys he's been facing. Fighters like Alexander Sipos (a former European Middleweight title challenger) and Max Heyman who really aren't very good. In fact there is not a single opponent on Krasniqi's record that would be recognised as the type of fighter that would prepare someone for a world title fight.
Going in to this bout Krasniqi is not only on a winning run but also a 4 fight stoppage streak. Though it's these stoppages that probably tell us more about Krasniqi than most would imagine. In a number of his fights where he feels he can stop an opponent he becomes very right hand happy and throws wild, looking rights that look they were thrown from a whole different town. Against a low level opponent Krasniqi has been able to get away with this though when he's facing a talented fighter like Cleverly he's going to be countered and hit cleanly as he opens up (if he actually gets a chance).
Whilst Krasniqi is rather unknown the champion, Cleverly is really well known in boxing circles, at least in Britain. He first came on to the professional scene as part of the Calzaghe camp though has since become a bit of a local star in his own right after the retirement of "The Welsh Dragon". Despite moving from the Calzaghe camp to being trained by his own father Cleverly still shows traits of the Enzo Calzaghe school of boxing which includes having a fantastic engine, great work rate and fast hands.
Although Cleverly isn't known as much of a puncher he does actually have respectable power when he sits on his shots and his body shots are very much an under-rated part of his game. If an opponent refuses to respect his power he can hurt them with either a single shot or a long series of unanswered shots. Rather interestingly though is the fact that Cleverly does seem capable of taking a decent shot, admittedly we've never seen him in with a world class puncher but he's taken shots from respectable punchers with out ever looking hurt.
Cleverly does of course have his critics, mostly those who criticise his loyalty to Frank Warren (who keeps serving up pish poor defenses whilst promising bigger fights) and of course the poor match ups he;s involved in, though this cannot take away from the fact he is a very decent fighter in his own right. Sure he may have once been Joe Calzaghe's under-study but right now the 26 year old from Cefn Fforest is arguably the 4th best Light Heavyweight on the planet. I think he'll manage to show the huge gulf in class between himself and Krasniqi here with the German not belonging anywhere near the top 10.
Prediction-Cleverly TKO8
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