Boxing: Cleverly's top of class in school of hard knocks

(chris bevan)

Boxing has never been regarded as the most cerebral of sporting pursuits – more associated with brain damage than brain boxes – so it is an eye-opener that the young fighter regarded by many as the best prospect in the land is as educated as his fists. The aptly named Nathan Cleverly is not only a bright spark in the ring but academically gifted out of it, studying for a mathematics degree while working his way towards a world-title shot.

Undefeated in 17 bouts, the 22-year-old British and Commonwealth light-heavyweight champion from Cefn Fforest in south Wales, who defends his titles against Courtney Fry at London's York Hall next Friday, is already being hailed as the new Joe Calzaghe.

But while his erstwhile stablemate and mentor has been trolling around the Strictly Come Dancing ballroom, floating more like a buffalo than a butterfly, Cleverly has been poring over a paper on Numerical Solutions of Elliptic Differential Equations in the final year of his degree course in pure maths at Cardiff University.

Surprisingly, in a sport where you might think the only quadratic equasion required is the ability to count up to 10, the bookish Cleverly is not alone in being a bit of a swot. Carl Froch, Calzaghe's successor as world super-middleweight champion, who defends against American Andre Dirrell in Nottingham on Saturday week, has a degree in sports science from Loughborough. Another gloved graduate is Audley Harrison BSc (Brunel), seen exhuming his career against three novices in Prizefighter.

Cleverly says he isn't sure yet how he will use his own degree when he graduates next year, which he hopes will be at around the same time as he challenges for a world title. "I wanted to have something outside my boxing career that gave me other options. But once I get my cap and gown I intend to continue boxing and hopefully I will earn a good enough living from it not to need to work at anything else. But at least I will have other choices, though it is really just the satisfaction of getting the degree.

"Maths has always come natural to me – I was usually top of the class at comprehensive school and college but I took up boxing because as a kid I was always getting into street fights. I felt a bit insecure and there was a bit of name-calling so I was fighting my way out of it rather than going into a shell. So I went down to the local gym to channel this aggression into controlled violence."

He turned professional after a brief amateur career ("I'd always trained and fought like a pro anyway"), working with the Calzaghe camp but after Joe split with Frank Warren he decided to remain with the promoter under the tuition of his own father, Vince. "I'd always looked up to Joe and his father Enzo and we're still friends but I felt I had to do what was best for my career," Cleverly said.

"One of the best young talents I've ever seen," says Warren of the 6ft 3in Cleverly, who admits it is a challenge to balance swotting and swatting. "It's hard to split myself in two, especially when there's a fight like this coming up and I have my head in my books. But it's also exciting because physical and mental aspects of my life may be contrasting but they complement each other."

There could be no greater contrast to the Cardiff campus than the cockpit of fistic academia that is York Hall, where Cleverly faces a rather more mature student of the noble art in 34-year-old social worker Fry, a sassy Liverpudlian who reckons he has the nous to teach the undergraduate a lesson. But he has fought only spasmodically in a seven-year career and his record, like his reasoning, doesn't quite add up. Cleverly, on a four-fight KO roll, shouldn't need a calculator to pass this exam.

The bright fighters

Gene Tunney: Shakespeare-quoting former world heavyweight champ exchanged letters for 20 years with George Bernard Shaw.

Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko: Multi-lingual heavyweight champs, both PhDs from Kiev University.

Calvin Brock: Ex-US Olympian and world heavyweight contender has degree in finance; bank manager.

Nicky Piper: Former Commonwealth light-heavyweight champ is member of Mensa with IQ of 153.

Juan Diaz: Ex-world lightweight champ has political science degree.

Alan Hubbard