Macklin, Froch, Nelson, Bellew and Moore
Friday 30 September 2016 10:10, UK
There is always talk of scorecards on foreign soil being questionable so we asked The Panel if Nathan Cleverly should be worried as he takes on Juergen Braehmer out in Germany.
And after three of them fought for world titles abroad, who better to give us their points of views?
Cleverly (29-3-KO15) challenges Braehmer (48-2-KO35) for the WBA world light-heavyweight title in Neubrandenburg, Germany, live on Sky Sports 2 this Saturday from 8pm.
It has been bad. Mine against Felix Sturm was bad and there have been several over the years but that happens. Some people said to me after the Sturm fight, 'you didn't need to win the early rounds' but I felt like I had to, to make sure. It does affect your gameplan and it will make things a little awkward for Cleverly but it might work in his favour.
He could just go in there and fight his fight but because the scoring always crops up and there are so many debatable decisions when you're fighting away from home, I am sure he will do more than just nick the rounds. He wants to make sure.
I always kept an eye on Arthur Abraham's fights because he was in my division. When I went up against him in the Super Six, I made sure the fight happened on neutral territory so we ended up in Finland. And even then, I made sure I worked for every single second of every single round and made it conclusive.
The one thing I will say is if I was Nathan Cleverly, I wouldn't take any chances and settle for winning any round closely. We've seen judges lean towards the home fighter over here as well, anywhere really, and no matter how fair and correct the cards turn out to be, any fighter is going to fight abroad with it on their mind.
German scoring isn't that bad, it really isn't. I've got the best record of any British boxer to fight out there and won all three fights, so it is certainly not the impossible task some people say.
The problem is fighters go over there with a chip on their shoulder thinking 'I am going to get done here' and it has happened. I bet other fighters say the same thing when they come over to the UK.
Maybe I had gone out there not expecting to go there and win, yet I won. Judges are judges, they are always under the spotlight, no matter what country they're in.
I see this one going a bit like the Paul Smith-Arthur Abraham fight, a really close one but one he'll just lose. It'll be one of those where you are sitting there thinking it could go either way but you expect the home fighter to win it. For me, the big, big thing is the decisions in Germany.
I don't mean to whinge or moan but some of the decisions we've seen over there have seemed ridiculous to me. Don't get me wrong though, we've had our fair share of bloopers over here in the UK - terrible decisions - so Germany isn't the only place.
There have been some dodgy decisions over here as well and in fact anywhere in the world, but some of those that went against us in Germany always stick in my mind. You only have to look back at something like Robin Reid and Sven Ottke 13 years ago. I thought that was an absolutely outrageous decision. Robin was an easy, easy winner so for him not to get it, still baffles me.
We had Matthew Macklin's fight against Felix Sturm which I think he won, but it wasn't on the same scale as the Reid-Ottke one, but I do think Macklin won it by at least two rounds. How wide the points should've been, whether Macklin should've won it by a couple or Reid had it by 10, is irrelevant - a bad decision is a bad decision. Cleverly has to make sure he doesn't leave anything to chance.
