Cleverly must beat Corbin tonight to get Bellew rematch

By Boxing News - 05/17/2014 - Comments

cleverly789By Scott Gilfoid: Former WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (26-1, 12 KO’s) has what appears to be a safe fight tonight against 39-year-old Sean Corbin (17-4, 12 KO’s) in Cleverly’s cruiserweight debut at the Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom. Cleverly wasn’t matched tough because this is his first fight at a new weight, and because he’s coming off of a long 9 month layoff following his 4th round massacre loss to Sergey Kovalev last August. But more importantly, Cleverly isn’t being matched tough tonight because he can’t afford to mess out on a career high payday fight against Tony Bellew for later this year.

That’s a fight that will make both fighters a lot of money, in addition to their promoters at Matchroom Sport. What’s interesting about the Cleverly-Bellew fight is that it’s two guys that likely won’t do much at cruiserweight in terms of them going anywhere at this weight and winning titles.

Their fight is arguably as good as it’ll get for either of them at cruiserweight, because if you throw them in the ring with one of the cruiserweight champions like Marco Huck, for instance, it’s very likely going to end badly for them. Huck is a very strong cruiserweight, and he’s not a pumped up light heavyweight with a chin problem.

“It is my job to deliver the biggest fights for my fighters and the fans, and that [Cleverly-Bellew 2] is the biggest fight in the division,” Hearn said. “If Nathan or Tony came to me and said they did not care about the money or the size of the crowd and just wanted a title shot, I could get them one tomorrow. But financially you want the biggest fight from that point…the buildup would be unbelievable. And it starts tonight.”

Hearn is right about the Cleverly vs. Bellew 2 fight being the biggest fight in the cruiserweight division. I mean, it’s not a fight with the most talented guys or even close to the most talented guys in the division, but it’s still the biggest fight due to the fans that will want to see the fight. I’d much rather see some highly talented cruiserweights like Huck, Krzystof Wlodarczyk, Yoan Hernandez, Guillermo Jones, Denis Lebedev, Ola Afolabi, Thabiso Mchunu and Rakhim Chakhkiev mix it up, because those guys are all very good fighters. But those fighters aren’t as popular, and they’d likely make a mess of Bellew or Cleverly if they were matched against them.



Comments are closed.