HOPEFULLY once the dust has settled and his pride restored, Nathan Cleverly will opt against retirement.

It’s no surprise whatsoever that the 26-year old is considering his options after his devastating defeat on Saturday, both the manner of the loss and performance he produced sure to vex Cleverly until his dying day.

Kovalev may well be the next big thing in boxing but he made Cleverly look dreadful at Cardiff’s Motorpoint Arena and the 26-year old Welshman is far from dreadful, he’s one of the best in Britain.

At 26-years of age Cleverly hopefully hasn’t hit his peak yet as a fighter and the loss to the destructive Russian was another reminder that relatively speaking, Cleverly is still very lacking in experience.

“He’s unbelievably inexperienced for a guy who already had five defences of a world title,” renowned boxing manager Kelly Duva opined post fight.

She’s right, of course. Cleverly is inexperienced at the elite level and arguably, should never have taken the risk of fighting a punchrt like Sergey Kovalev. That, of course, is easy to say in hindsight.

It’s even easier to point out where it all went wrong, no Maths degree required to know that Cleverly needed to take the fight long against an opponent who had never been beyond six sessions. Similarly, it seemed entirely obvious Cleverly needed to strike and move, box behind the jab and look to capitalise no his speed, not stand and trade on the inside as he did.

I heard Cleverly’s father and trainer say before the fight that comparatively speaking, Nathan, undefeated in 26 fights, was ahead of Joe Calzaghe at the same stage in his career. That’s not true and easy to shoot down.

Simply put, Cleverly had never faced or beaten a fighter even close to the level of Chris Eubank, who Calzaghe beat to claim his first world title. His chin, his punching power, none of it had been tested at the truly highest level, because Tony Bellew simply isn’t of that calibre.

However, if this is coming across as a criticism of Cleverly, it isn’t meant to be, further than saying he was tactically all over the place at the weekend.

Having been following Nathan’s career since he turned professional I had previously tipped him to be a world champion and I’m now tipping him to be one again.

He wasn’t savaged by Kovalev, not handed a career-defining beating he’d struggle to recover from, he merely lost a fight to the better man on the night.

And that’s where the biggest issue lies. Cleverly lost a fight. In 99.9% of the boxing world, that’s an expected occurence, something every boxer must endure at some stage. Except in South Wales. In South Wales our best fighters don’t lose, they rip-up the history books and forge reputations that will live on long after they’ve departed.

We’ve been spoiled by Joe Calzaghe’s remarkable career to the point that it’s easy to see Nathan’s loss as the end of the world, whereas in reality it’s nothing more than a setback.

If we were expecting Cleverly to emulate Calzaghe then that’s our issue, our mistake, not Nathan’s problem. Calzaghe is a unique, one-off talent and other than being friends and from the same area, the comparisons between the pair are unfair and harmful to Cleverly.

For too long the Cefn Fforest fighter has been judged as Calzaghe’s successor and not in his own right as what he is, an extremely talented boxer capable of competing at world title level.

And he can and will again. As I said at the top of the piece, Cleverly is several years away from his peak and shouldn’t be seriously considering walking away from the sport, because I don’t believe a man with a brain like his could live with all the ‘what if’ questions if he quits now.

But a change of scenary seems almost essential. Cleverly has enjoyed success training with his father Vince, but the time has come to fly the nest, even if that means doing an Amir Khan and heading to the US.

But Cleverly’s story isn’t finished, not by a long shot.