JOSHUA CLOTTEY

updated July 29, 2008

At the age of 30, Joshua is a 13-year pro. A veteran contender at 147 pounds, he has won four fights in a row since his unsuccessful challenge against WBO welterweight world champion Antonio Margarito in December, 2006.

He is coming off a fifth-round TKO win against Jose Luis Cruz in his last fight in April, 2008. Joshua earned the IBF No. 1 ranking and status as mandatory world title challenger with a 12 round decision win against Shamone Alvarez in an eliminator in December, 2007.

After the fight, Dan Rafael wrote on ESPN.com [excerpts]: In a thoroughly professional and dominant performance, Clottey, a native of Ghana living in New York, outslugged and outboxed Alvarez....

The methodical victory earned Clottey a mandatory shot.... In his only previous title fight last December, Clottey performed well against Antonio Margarito in the first half of the fight before injuring both hands and losing a decision.

Since then, Clottey has won three in a row - a dominant decision against Diego “Chico” Corrales in what turned out to be Corrales’ final bout before he died, a lopsided points win against Felix Flores in August and this win against Atlantic City’s Alvarez. Clottey controlled every aspect of the bout, which he fought at his own pace. He never let Alvarez, a southpaw, really get into a groove. Even when Alvarez landed his punches they didn’t seem to have much impact on Clottey.... The CompuBox statistics tell the tale of this one - Clottey landed 181 of 572 blows (32 percent) and Alvarez connected on 116 of 867 shots (13 percent).”

Fightwriter.com’s Graham Houston reported [excerpts]: It wasn’t a flashy or spectacular performance, but Joshua Clottey was pleasingly workmanlike in his unanimous decision win over previously unbeaten Shamone Alvarez in their welterweight title eliminator....

Clottey is not known to be a very hard hitter but he can be a hurtful one and I think that Alvarez was feeling the effects of the steady punishment by the later rounds. He gamely stuck it out to the final bell, but there was only one winner, with the judges scoring 118-110, 116-112 and a surprisingly close 115-113.

Clottey is a difficult opponent for almost anyone because his closed-shop defence makes it hard to hit him with clean shots and he has an effective way of springing into the attack to land quick punches. The left hook and left uppercut were working well, but he also fired some nice, straight right hands through the middle, knocking back Alvarez’s head.

Clottey began to beat him in every department, either pushing him back or waiting to counter. It was as if Alvarez couldn’t do a thing. He looked as if he didn’t know whether he was coming or going, and I had the feeling, in the later rounds, that he was fighting simply to stay in the bout rather than fighting to win it.

In December, 2006, Joshua lost a 12 round decision loss in a world title challenge against WBO welterweight champion Antonio Margarito - he started the fight very strongly, but injured his left hand badly in the fourth round and his right hand soon after that, and was not as effective in the second half of the fight.

In an earlier interview, Joshua said, “Everything is correct with my hand now. I never had any problems with it against Corrales. It was a stress fracture. I think it was from combination of punches. I think I was throwing a big shot at Margarito, I hit his face and I go to the body, and I come to the head. The first punch went to the head straight, and I started feeling the hand - “No, no, no, the hand is paining me.’ So from there, I couldn’t use the hand. I hurt the right hand, too, so it was my nightmare, it was my bad day. If it was not for that, I was going to beat him.

“I went to Ghana after the Margarito fight because of the hand. I was there for six weeks or two months. I didn’t use the hand for like, two months. We got some Africa medicine that we rubbed on the hand. The hand is going to be allright. So, I went there and rest the hand for like, two months and rubbed the medicine on it and everything is fine now.”

Before the loss to Margarito, Joshua was undefeated in his previous 11 fights - 10-0, 1 NC - dating back to his first loss in November, 1999, against Carlos Baldomir. A native of Accra, Ghana, Joshua moved to New York in late 2003. He is the younger brother, by three years, of jr. welterweight veteran Emmanuel “Sleek” Clottey.

Joshua’s first 11 fights were in Africa. He signed a contract in 1996 with English promoter Panos Eliades, who also promoted heavyweight world champion Lennox Lewis at the time, and Joshua fought in England six times from ‘96 to ’99.

His first loss was by a questionable disqualification in London in November, 1999, against Argentinian Carlos Baldomir, who went on to win the WBC and The Ring welterweight world title. Joshua was leading on the scorecards when he was DQ’d. He said, “Let me tell you something. The one that I lost, I was disqualified. They robbed me. I was winning all the scorecards. I take that fight as a big robbery.”

Joshua has been introduced as Joshua “Hitter” Clottey for several years. He said, “My ring name is ‘Heater.’ When I started professional in Ghana, they started calling me that name. It’s like, when I’m fighting in the rounds, I used to charge. When the rounds were going, I keep charging. So somebody give me that name, because it’s like when you put the cold water down, then you put the heater in the water, the water is going to be hot.”

He said the birthdate listed on his Fight Fax record – Oct. 6, 1976 - is incorrect and that he was actually born a year later; he said, “When I was amateur in Ghana, my age was not good to go to the Commonwealth Games in 1994. So, they put one more year on my age. My real age is 1997, but they make it 1976 in the passbook.”