A passionate, proud Welsh Crowd witnessed a dominant win in the ‘Home Coming’ of WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly at the Motorpoint, Arena, Cardiff, Wales on Saturday night.
The champion was able to show the full variety of his shots in the fight and controlled the pace of the action. The challenger Tommy Karpency, from Adah, Pennsylvania, USA, was never really in the fight. While he proved durable, he looked to mainly stay out of trouble and navigate through the rounds. It was a negative performance from the American and he proved hard to look good against. Though, Cleverly did all he could to engage the challenger.
Nathan showed his full arsenal of punches in the fight from a nice, crisp jab to impressive uppercuts, to fast flurries of two handed combinations. Cleverly attacked the body impressively throughout the bout. The challenger has worked a lot as a sparring partner, to the big names in boxing, and he used all that experience to keep out of trouble. It was frustrating to watch him as you would expect more ambition in a World title fight.
The challenger never looked in any real trouble, but as the judges’ scorecards reflected he didn’t win a round and I gave every round to the champion. It was only round eleven when Karpency fought with some urgency.
Nathan said after the fight, “Nice performance, good workout. Plenty more to come, from me”. Next time, I hope the challenger is a more willing opponent. To the champions credit he was patient and didn’t get reckless. He showed off his boxing skills, while getting another 12 rounds under his belt. It was the third successful defence of his title and a mature performance against an unwilling challenger.
The Welshman is now looking for a unification fight and a big fight has been mooted to take place in the Cardiff City Arena in June. I have a feeling that it will be an all-Welsh fight with Enzo Maccarinelli, who won in 2 rounds, on the undercard, against Irishman Ciaran Healy.
The Champions record improves to 24-0 (11, kos) while the challenger falls to 21-3-1 (14, kos)
The judges scores: Richard James Davies 120-108; judge: Fernando Laguna 120-108; judge: Waleska Roldan 120-108. The referee was Terry O’Connor.
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