By Scott Gilfoid: After tonight’s disappointing 12 round draw between WBC Silver light heavyweight champion Tony Bellew (19-1-1, 12 KO’s) and Isaac Chilemba (20-1-1, 9 KO’s) at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, UK, Bellew’s promoter Eddie Hearn from Matchroom Sport said that he plans on putting Bellew back in with the #3 WBC Chilemba again in the near future so that a winner of the fight can be determined to pick out the mandatory challenger for WBC light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson. And, yes, the rematch will almost surely take place again in Bellew’s home city of Liverpool.
Tonight’s Bellew-Chilemba fight was scored 116-112 for Chilemba, 116-112 for Bellew, and 114-114. I had the fight scored 117-111 for Chilemba, as I thought he clearly out-boxed Bellew pretty much all night long, leaving him hitting nothing but air. I was very impressed with Chilemba’s defensive skills in this fight.
I haven’t seen defensive skills like that since I saw Andre Dirrell out-box Carl Froch in the Super Six tournament in 2009 in Nottingham, UK. Froch couldn’t lay a glove on Dirrell, and had to resort to roughing him up, body slamming him at one point and doing a lot punching in the clinches. When the two fighters had separation between them, Froch couldn’t lay a glove on Dirrell.
Bellew fought well in the first couple of rounds while Chilemba was getting warmed up. However, from the 3rd round on, Chilemba was able to slip Bellew’s attempts to hit him with wild right hands, and easily out-box him. The last six rounds were totally one-sided with Chilemba taking the fight to a no longer confident Bellew.
After the fight result was announced, the British crowd was as quiet as a funeral. There wasn’t any booing, which spoke volumes because it showed that the Brits realized what had taken place in the ring with Bellew getting dominated completely in the last 8 rounds of the fight.
Hearn needs to think twice about putting Bellew back in with Chilemba because this is a bad, bad match-up for the limited Bellew and nothing good can come of it by Hearn putting him back in with this talented fighter.
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