Hearn: Bellew has a fantastic plan to beat Adonis Stevenson

By Boxing News - 11/21/2013 - Comments

bellew67By Scott Gilfoid: #1 WBC, Tony Bellew (20-1-1, 12 KO’s) is an underdog going into his fight in a little over a week on November 30th against WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson (22-1, 19 KO’s) at the Colisee de Quebec, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. Bellew’s promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport sees this fight as a “life changer” for Bellew and he believes that he’s got a great chance of pulling off an upset to defeat Stevenson. Hearn doesn’t see the fight as one where Bellew should be the underdog, because Hearn believes he’s got more than a 50-50 chance at beating Stevenson.

“I think it’s going to be much more than a 50-50 fight than most people think,” Hearn said to IFL TV. “I think Tony’s a fantastic boxer. I think Stevenson is overrated, but he can definitely punch…I think Tony’s got a fantastic plan to beat him. I think he’s got a great chance. We’re calling this one the life changer, me and Tony. You win this you’ve absolutely cracked it.”

If Bellew wins this fight, I don’t know about him cracking it like Hearn says. If Hearn’s idea is to have Bellew milk the title against the top 15 contenders that the WBC has ranked, then I can see him with another tough fight eventually against the likes of Jean Pacal after two or three optional contenders. I don’t think Bellew will beat Pascal. If Hearn wants to have Bellew look for something special in a unification bout against WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev, then I definitely see Bellew getting beaten by Kovalev and quite badly. I give Bellew no chance at all in beating Kovalev. Either way, Hellew is going to eventually get derailed by either Kovalev or Pascal.

If you look at the Bellew-Stevenson fight in a realistic way rather than a dream-like manner, there’s pretty much no chance that Bellew will win this fight. He’s slower, weaker and easier to hit than Stevenson. Those advantages for Stevenson will be more than enough for him to easily win this fight and turn Bellew into another Tavoris Cloud or Don George. By the way, Hearn said this about Stevenson’s win over George “He [Stevenson] struggled against Don George.” I’m not sure which fight Hearn was watching, but Stevenson did not struggle against Don George. I’ve seen that fight four times and it was totally one-sided from start to finish with Stevenson easily out-boxing George for 11 rounds and then knocking him out in the 12th round. If Hearn sees that as fight where Stevenson struggled to beat George, then I think he needs to sit down and watch the fight again because that’s not what happened in that fight. It was an embarrassingly easy fight for Stevenson to win.

As for the so-called fantastic plan that Bellew has try and beat Stevenson, I think it’s pretty obvious it’s going to be the same clinching/holding plan that Bellew used against Isaac Chilemba last May in which Bellew will come out and immediately grab Stevenson in a clinch and stay that way for 12 rounds. Bellew will look to stay clued to Stevenson for 12 rounds, and he’ll have to hope that the referee doesn’t disqualify him for holding. I thought Bellew should have been penalized and then disqualified against Chilemna last May in their UK fight in Liverpool, but he was able to hold all night without losing points. Given that the Bellew-Stevenson fight will be staged in Canada, I see Bellew being forced to actually fight rather than hold after losing points for excessive holding. As such, I see Stevenson knocking Bellew out once he’s given space to throw his power punches.



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