Caparello Considering Move Down to Super Middleweight

by David P. Greisman

Blake Caparello’s had one fight since his second-round stoppage loss to Sergey Kovalev last year. And while that defeat came against one of the best at 175, Caparello is mulling dropping down to 168.

“I can make super middleweight and there’s a lot of options there at the moment,” he said. “Light heavyweight’s a little bit tied up at the top end, so I’ll see what happens. If an opportunity comes at light heavyweight, we’ll take it. But we’re looking at super middleweight.”

Given that he believes he can make super middleweight, it’s fair to wonder whether he then sees his counterparts at light heavyweight as being too big for him

“Being in the ring with some of these blokes, yeah, it’s starting to look that way,” Caparello said. “They’re walking around at 88, 90 kilos (194-198.4 pounds), where I walk around at 81, 82 (178.6 to 180.8 pounds).”

Even though Kovalev went on to put on a great performance against Bernard Hopkins, Caparello doesn’t feel any better about how he lost.

“We had a good start against Kovalev. I just made a minor mistake. I paused and at that level you can’t make that mistake. He got me with a good liver shot and I couldn’t recover from it,” he said. “It still stings the way I lost. It was a great performance by Kovalev against Bernard. He boxed very nicely. He showed everybody he’s not just a big hitter; he’s actually a smart boxer.”

Caparello has a May date near Melbourne, Australia, and is seeing if he’s going to be back even sooner as well. His last appearance was in December, when he outpointed a 15-3 opponent named Maximiliano Gomez.

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