Hearn: Why not give Bellew a rematch with Cleverly

By Boxing News - 01/04/2012 - Comments

Image: Hearn: Why not give Bellew a rematch with CleverlyBy Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn asked the question that was on the tongues of a lot of boxing fans today when upon hearing the news that WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (23-0, 11 Ko’s) will be facing Tommy Karpency (21-2-1, 14 KO’s) next on February 25th, Hearn said on his twitter “Why not give Tony Bellew the rematch? It was a great fight and easy to make again?” Hearn is 100% right of course.

The Bellew-Cleverly rematch would be so easy to make because Bellew has been asking for it since he was beaten by Cleverly last October by a controversial 12 round majority decision loss. Now I’m no fan of either Cleverly or Bellew, but I do think that was in no way a win for Cleverly.

That fight was a clear draw and giving it to Cleverly was a joke, but what is more of a joke is that Cleverly is satisfied with the win and is moving on as if he got a clear win. But to move on face a fighter like Karpency, who isn’t even ranked in the top `15 by the World Boxing Organization, which just seems like pure cherry picking.

I think it’s bad for boxing when you have a great fight like the Bellew-Cleverly fight and instead of giving fans a rematch, you put Cleverly in with a guy that isn’t even ranked in the top tier by the WBO. Karpency hasn’t fought in over a year and the last fighter he beat was Andre Hemphill (10-16-1). Nice record, eh? In Karpency’s fight before that, he fought Julius Jackson (3-7). This guy is no relation to former junior middleweight knockout artist Julian Jackson or his children.

Cleverly said to thesun.co.uk “I can’t wait to show the fans in Wales just what I’ve achieved.”

Is Cleverly on the level? So this is the big fight that’s going to show Cleverly’s fans what he’s achieved? My, that’s quite nicely put by Cleverly. Look at the guy he’s beaten: Aleksky Kuziemski, Najib Mohammedi, a controversial win over Bellew that the majority of boxing fans thought was a draw. So this is Cleverly’s big achievement?
The real question is why isn’t Cleverly’s promoter putting him back in with Bellew?

Was Bellew not supposed to fight as well as he did last time? I don’t see the point of continuing to match Cleverly softly unless the whole idea is to work him to a point where he get a big money fight and is wiped out. You might as well let Bellew pick him off and then the best guy can move and get that cash out fight. It shouldn’t be the weaker of the two that moves just because he can throw a lot of punches and block a lot of shots with his head.

Cleverly is going to lose as soon as he’s put in with anyone that can fight. We just saw that against Bellew. If Cleverly can’t beat a bottom tier fighter like Bellew, then he doesn’t deserve to move on and get whipped by Bernard Hopkins or one of the other champions. Cleverly needs to be weeded out right now at this level and I think Bellew is the fight where Cleverly is either weeded out or he moves past it.



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