by David P. Greisman

Nathan Cleverly says his upcoming bout with light heavyweight contender Andzrej Fonfara will be his toughest since he fought Sergey Kovalev. But while Cleverly lost to Kovalev by fourth-round technical knockout back in 2013, he believes the result will be different against Fonfara.

“He’s a good fighter. He’s got an excellent resume. He’s coming off some good wins,” Cleverly said of Fonfara on an Oct. 8 media conference call, speaking about a week ahead of their Oct. 16 fight in Chicago on a Premier Boxing Champions broadcast on Spike TV

“He pushed [Adonis] Stevenson all the way, knocking him down late on in the fight,” Cleverly said, before rattling off Fonfara’s victories over Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., Gabriel Campillo and Tommy Karpency.

“All those kind of fighters, they’re all world-class fighters,” Cleverly said, though boxing observers would argue he was being charitable with that description.

Then he transitioned from talking about the guys Fonfara faced to talking about Fonfara himself.

“He’s a strong fighter. He looks to be in good shape in later rounds. He looks to have good fitness and stamina levels while still punching hard late in the fight. I don’t think there’s many weaknesses with Andrzej, but what I can capitalize on, I believe that my movement, I believe my speed and my punch variation, I believe the variety will give Fonfara problems. I believe I can pull this off.”

This’ll essentially be Cleverly’s second fight at light heavyweight since coming back down to the division. The former titleholder left 175 after getting dethroned by Kovalev. He moved up to cruiserweight in 2014, beating Shawn Corbin in May of that year, Alejandro Valori that July, and then having a rematch with Tony Bellew last November. Bellew won by split decision.

Cleverly dropped close to 20 pounds for his fight this past May against Tomas Man, weighing in slightly over 179 pounds. He won in 24 seconds, moving his record to 29-2 with 15 KOs.

Fonfara is 27-3 with 16 KOs and has won two straight since his loss to light heavyweight champion Stevenson last year, outpointing Doudou Ngumbu last November and then scoring a ninth-round technical knockout of Chavez Jr. this past April.

Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon or internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide . Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com