Nathan Cleverly Planning Some Training Adjustments
By Terence Dooley
Nathan Cleverly moved to 21-0 (10) with a hard fought points win over Nadjib Mohammedi earlier this month to win the Interim WBO light-heavyweight title yet the Welsh wizard was concerned over his bitty display and is considering relocating his training camp in order to get quality sparring ahead of future bouts.
“Training went okay but it was not great,” revealed Cleverly when speaking about the situation with the BBC. “I won't go into detail but I'm struggling to find sparring at the moment so I will have to sort that out and hopefully come back a better fighter. It was the most frustrating 12 rounds I had ever done, including sparring as well as the fight.
“The question is are we going to stay put in Wales and bring in sparring partners from elsewhere? Or if we'll have to go nearer to potential training partners in Manchester or London for a pre-fight training camp for a couple of weeks specifically for sparring.”
He added: “We were struggling before the last fight because I was relying on amateur fighters coming in and sharing the rounds - so I was low on numbers for quality sparring. Ideally I would stay in Wales because it is what I'm used to. However, the advantage of going somewhere else for training camps is it takes you out of your comfort zone and gets you different sparring partners. But I won't be leaving Wales permanently. I don't see any reason for it as it has worked well for me this far.”
Cleverly is trained by his father, Vince, and has boxed out of Cefn Forest, Wales for much of his pro career, Manchester and London have been earmarked as possible places for his future pre-fight preparations due to the easy availability of sparring partners.
However, Nathan will be loathe to switch a winning formula, he will have to think long and hard about moving his training base, Joe Calzaghe fought out of his father’s small gym for his entire career, fellow Welshman Enzo Maccarinelli changed his environment for recent fights and has had mixed results.
It is an interesting problem for Cleverly, the 23-year-old recently earned a degree in pure mathematics and will have to box clever as he strives for the correct world title winning formula.
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