By Scott Gilfoid: After struggling badly in his first fight at cruiserweight against 37-year-old Valery Brudov in what should have been an easy fight, Tony Bellew (21-2-1, 13 KO’s) isn’t letting himself look beyond his scheduled opponent #11 WBO Julio Cesar Dos Santos (26-2, 23 KO’s) for next Saturday, July 12th at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, UK.
Bellew’s promoter Eddie Hearn hooked him up with the 36-year-old fringe contender Santos to get him a scalp who is technically a ranked contender in order to get him ready for a domestic level clash next November against his former conqueror Nathan Cleverly.
Bellew already got lashed in his last fight against an older 37-year-old in going life and death with Brudov, who wasn’t even ranked in the top 15 at cruiserweight.
As such, Bellew isn’t taking any chances of looking past the Dos Santos match-up to the Cleverly fight, because he realizes he could lose like he did last year when WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson easily beat him by a 6th round knockout last November.
“It’s all about July 12, not about Nathan,” Bellew said via Dan Rafael of ESPN. “I cannot think about anything other than Julio Santos. He’s a very, very durable and hard-punching Brazilian. I know he is strong, he has never been stopped and he does a little of everything. Fans come to see me because I stop people, and this guy is a solid proven cruiserweight, so we’ll see what I can do with him. I’ve already fought a former world cruiserweight title challenger in Valery Brudov. This is a similar fight.”
I hate to rain on Bellew’s parade, but the contenders get a lot better than Dos Santos once you start climbing the food chain. It’s nice that Bellew is building the guy up, but the fact of the matter is that he’s a fringe level guy, not a top 5 contender. Dos Santos was beaten last year by Dymtro Kucher by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision in a fight where he didn’t win one round.
Dos Santos was beaten by Laudelino Jose Barros in 2012 by a 12 round decision as well. Bellew needs to be taking advantage of the easy fodder that Hearn throws in the ring with him, because if he can’t take care of the Brudov and Dos Santos type opponents, then how in the world can you expect Bellew to beat the really good cruiserweight contenders like Rakhim Chakhkiev, Thabiso Mchunu, Ilunga Makabu and Ola Afolabi, not that he’ll have to beat any of them in order to get a world title shot.
Cleverly already spilled the beans earlier today when he said that the winner of his fight against Bellew will likely be fighting for a world title in their next fight straightaway. They won’t have to go through the tough proving grounds to beat the likes of Mchunu, Makabu, Alfobai or Chakhkiev for them to get a world title shot.
Dos Santos can punch a little, and is definitely a step up from most of the guys that Bellew fought while at light heavyweight. But with that said, he’s still very slow and beatable. Bellew should be able to beat this guy with ease. But of course, we thought the same thing with his last fight against Brudov, and Bellew was almost knocked silly by the Russian fighter.
Comments are closed.