By Scott Gilfoid: Despite Bernard Hopkin’s 2nd round loss to Chad Dawson last weekend, the management for WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (23-0, 11 KO’s) still want to go ahead with the Cleverly vs. Hopkins fight in 2012.

Frank Warren, the promoter for Cleverly, told the Telegraph “Is still on.”

That sounds all well and good but Hopkins doesn’t have the WBC title as of now, and he faces months of rehabilitation ahead of him for his dislocated left shoulder that he injured in the loss to Dawson. If Cleverly doesn’t mind waiting around for five to six months waiting for the shoulder to heal up, then more power to him. He might be better off staying busy fighting other guys though. WBA light heavyweight champion Beibut Shumenov is also an option if Hopkins can’t take the fight.

Cleverly said “My next stage could be a unification fight against Shumenov. I’d love to become a unified champion.”

I don’t think Shumenov is in the class of Hopkins and Dawson, but I think he’s too good for Cleverly.

I thought Cleverly looked pretty average in his win over Tony Bellew last Saturday night. Cleverly won the fight by a 12 round majority decision over Bellew by the scores of 117-112, 114-114 and 116-113. The scores were pretty ridiculous apart from the 114-114 scorecard. I saw the fight as a draw.

Cleverly did finish strong by winning the 11th and 12th rounds, but he already given away rounds 2, 3, 4, 7, 9 and 10 on my scorecard. That makes it draw. But I never really expected that Bellew would get the decision, so I’m not surprised, but I don’t consider that a win. Cleverly ate a heck of power shots and looked really mediocre. I thought Bellew did a great job of taking advantage of Cleverly nonexistent defense.

So the magic question is will Hopkins fight Cleverly in 2012 after Hopkins’ shoulder injury heals? I doubt it. Hopkins prefers to face stars or guys that at least are well known. Cleverly is still starting out and he’s coming off a fight where he struggled against the number #15 ranked challenger Bellew. I doubt Hopkins is going to want to fight Cleverly unless he’s interested in picking up an easy title.