Bellew vs. Chilemba: Don’t be surprised if Tony tastes some canvas on March 30th

By Boxing News - 01/10/2013 - Comments

bellew45By Scott Gilfoid: You can shield a fighter from quality opponents with soft matchmaking for a while but sooner or later you’ve got to take on a good fighter and that’s where the problems come back and bite you in the backside.

Tony Bellew (19-1, 12 KO’s) has received a nice #3 ranking by the World Boxing Council in the light heavyweight division after having beaten three consecutive easy opponents after beating dominated by WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly in a 12 round decision loss in October 2011.

The resuming padding victories has now put the 30-year-old Bellew in a WBC light heavyweight eliminator bout against Isaac Chilemba (20-1-1, 9 KO’s) on March 9th at the Echo Arena in Bellew’s home city of Liverpool. I know it’s nice to be able to fight at home and hear the loud crowd screaming and all that, but Bellew’s opponent isn’t your typical fodder opponent that you can beat up on.

Chilemba is a really good fighter, and he’s immune to crowd noise. I’ve seen Chilemba fight in hostile environments in the past, and he performed like a machine, shutting out the crowd completely and just focusing on landing his big bombs to get the victory.

Bellew’s chin has a big question mark on it because he’s tasted the canvas before in his first fight with Ovil McKenzie in July 2011 where Bellew hit the deck twice before he realized that it would be better to try and box rather than slug. However, Bellew remains totally vulnerable to getting nailed and hurt, as we saw in his fight against little known contender Roberto Bolonti last November. Bellew was hit early and often by the smaller Bolonti and ended up suffering a nasty cut over his right eyebrow in the 1st round after Bellew bum rushed Bolonti and got tagged.

Chilemba has much better size, power and a willingness to mix it up with his opponents. He’s not going to play it safe for 12 rounds like Bolonti did. Chilemba’s going to go after Bellew and I wouldn’t be surprised if he knocks Bellew down two or three times before this fight is over.



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