By William Mackay: WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly’s promoter reportedly wants to have the proposed unification bout against WBA World light heavyweight Beibut Shumenov (12-1, 8 KO’s) take place in Cleverly’s home country of Wales.

Cleverly and Shumenov are in the early stages of negotiations for a fight that could take place in early 2012 if the can be made. Shumenov, however, wants the fight to take place in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he now lives. Shumenov feels that the fight will get more attention by putting it in Vegas rather than having it take place in Wales.

The fight will probably make more money in Wales, but it might be a dangerous fight for Shumenov to take if it occurs there. He could find himself on the losing end of a controversial decision and it’s doubtful he’ll want to take a chance that he’ll lose in that fashion.

Shumenov, 28, doesn’t throw as many punches as Cleverly typically does but he does appear to have more power. It could come down to whether the judges are more impressed with Cleverly’s work rate or Shumenov’s harder landing shots. I wouldn’t be a judge for that fight.

In his last bout, Shumenov defeated Danny Santiago by a 9th round TKO. It should have been an easy fight for Shumenov, but he looked slow and ended up with bruising under both eyes. In his fights before that, Shumenov stopped William Joppy by a 6th round TKO last January and then defeated the hard hitting contender Viacheslav Uzelkov by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision in Shumenov’s most impressive performance of his career in July 2010.

For his part, Cleverly, 24, defeated Tony Bellew by a controversial 12 round majority decision last time out in October. It wasn’t an impressive performance from Cleverly and the fight appeared to be a draw in my view. Cleverly got hit a lot in that fight and pulled out the fight by finishing strong.