Everyone seems to have an opinion on the British blockbuster between Nathan Cleverly and Tony Bellew. We’re just days before the bout so the time for talking is nearly over. But one mans opinion which will influence the WBO light-heavyweight title fight more than most belongs to Nathan’s father and co-trainer, Vince Cleverly who spoke to NathanCleverly.co.uk recently.

Vince Cleverly and Alan Davies took charge of Nathan’s training in late 2008 taking over from multiple world champion trainer Enzo Calzaghe and the pair haven’t looked back. The duo have trained Nathan for his last 10 fights with every fight being a championship fight and along the way they’ve been successful in Commonwealth, British, European, world eliminator, world interim and full world title fights.

The bad tempered build up between Cleverly and Bellew has made many headlines. Come October 15^th it won’t be Bellew’s verbals that son Nathan will be thinking about, it will be his boxing and Vince Cleverly is certain Nathan has the answers.

Vince commented, “He’s got that good right hand and all he looks for is to knock people out. If he does land the right hand on Nathan there will be no effect and he’ll have nothing else so we’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“Nathan has better lateral movement, hand speed, angles. He’s just a completely better fighter than Tony Bellew in all aspects. Nathan is much more of an athlete than Tony Bellew. Tony Bellew knows that there’s only one chance of beating Nathan and that’s winding him up so he makes mistakes, but there’s no chance of Nathan doing that.”

While many boxers use pre-fight talk to gain a psychological edge on their opponent, Vince believes that Bellew’s words have had the opposite effect on his Welsh opponent.

“Nathan will adapt no matter what the situation is, no matter what Tony Bellew throws at him. The more Tony Bellew continues his talking, the more Nathan’s mind will get into gear. As the fight is getting nearer he’s getting more and more determined to beat Tony Bellew in the ring in front of 10,000 Scousers”, said Vince.

The bout billed as ‘Who Can Walk The Walk?’ is in Liverpool’s Echo Arena and Team Clev have fond memories of boxing in the city with successful Commonwealth and world interim wins there.

“Of course I’m looking forward to being in Liverpool. Nathan choose where to fight, he could have had the fight anywhere he wanted to. We were struggling to find a venue in Cardiff but there’s no problem fighting in Liverpool and I’m sure the fans will all behave themselves during and after Nathan wins.”

After Cleverly tackles Bellew on October 15^th attention switches to Bernard Hopkins’ defence of his WBC light-heavyweight title against Chad Dawson, with talk of the winners of both bouts meeting soon. With such a lucrative reward, Vince Cleverly realises that it makes the Bellew fight more important.

“Providing Clev comes through this fine and then Hopkins beats Dawson then we want that fight. I think that whoever walks out of that ring as a winner in Liverpool is a challenger to Bernard Hopkins or Chad Dawson for either boxer so that’s all the motivation for this fight with Tony Bellew that we need.”