Bellew stops Dos Santos; Joshua and Cleverly also win

By Boxing News - 07/12/2014 - Comments

bellew7898By Scott Gilfoid: Former WBC Silver light heavyweight champion Tony Bellew (22-2-1, 14 KO’s) stopped 36-year-old Brazilian Julio Cesar Dos Santos (26-3, 23 KO’s) in the 5th round on Saturday night at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, UK. Bellew connected with a left hook that dropped Dos Santos in the 5th. Dos Santos staggered to his feet, but the referee halted it anyway.

Dos Santos was nailing Bellew with monstrous shots in the 3rd and 4th rounds. Going into the 5th, Dos Santos looked like he was on his way to victory. He looked like he was going to get to Bellew. Fortunately for Bellew, Dos Santos threw a left hook at the same time that Bellew threw his own left hook. Bellew’s left hand got there first and sent Dos Santos down.

Bellew and Nathan Cleverly jawed at each other after the fight with both flapping their gums a mile a minute and not making much sense.

“I think Tony Bellew knocks out Nathan Cleverly,” Carl Froch said after the fight. “I think that knockout to Kovalev took something out of him. I’m picking Bellew to knock him out.”

Froch and Bellew are good friends, so you have to ignore what Froch had to say about who would win between Bellew and Cleverly.

Bellew told Cleverly “I was dead on the scales,” in referring to his loss to Cleverly three years ago in 2011.

Cleverly said “I’m going to spank you and I’m going to do it again.”

Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn said “This fight is going to be made, and it’s going to be a great fight.”

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Unbeaten heavyweight prospect Anthony Joshua (7-0, 7 KO’s) defeated 47-year-old journeyman Matt Skelton (28-9, 23 KO’s) by a 2nd round knockout. Joshua dropped the rusty Skelton twice in the 2nd round. The fight was then halted at 2:33 of the round.

Skelton hadn’t fought in 16 months prior to the fight. However, he was still able to land some right hands against Joshua before running into a right hand in the 2nd round.

Compared to his other fights, Joshua didn’t look nearly as stiff and robotic as he normally does. I mean, he still looked robotic and mechanical, but not quite at the level he normally does. If he could work on his flexibility and lose some muscle, he might be a decent heavyweight some day, but right now he’s still too stiff and easy to hit. If Joshua had been getting nailed with head shots from Deontay Wilder or Wladimir Klitschko in the first two rounds, I think it would have been over quickly.

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Former WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (28-1, 14 KO’s) stopped Argentinian Alejandro Emilio Valori (15-5, 11 KOs) in the 4th round. Cleverly dropped the chunky looking 31-year-old Valori twice with lefts to the body in the fight.

The first knockdown came in the 2nd round. In the 4th, Cleverly dropped Valori with another left to the body. Valori got back to his feet, but the fight was halted anyway due to Valori breathing so hard and looking pretty gassed out.

Valori missed with many of his wild shots throughout the fight. When he did land, he appeared to have more power than Cleverly. The problem is that he couldn’t handle the body shots.

Cleverly took way too many head shots from this guy, and he was fortunate that he wasn’t fighting an actual contender instead of a chunky looking 3rd tier fighter brought in to give Cleverly a tune-up. I mean, had this been a good cruiserweight like Rakhim Chakhkiev or Thabiso Mchunu, Cleverly likely would have been in deep, deep trouble. Those two are actual contenders and not just fodder.

“Get ready for fireworks. Tony, please win your fight and I’m coming for you,” Cleverly said,

IBF/WBA super middleweight champion Carl Froch gave some comments after the fight, saying that Cleverly got hit way too much in this fight.

I didn’t see improvement from Cleverly’s fight against Sergey Kovalev from last August. He’s still incredibly easy to hit, and his power isn’t impressive even for a light heavyweight. He’s punching like at the middleweight level while fighting at cruiserweight. Cleverly is going to have problems when he fights a live body in the future.

With the win, Cleverly will be fighting Tony Bellew later this year if Bellew wins his fight tonight.

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Heavily hyped super middleweight fringe contender Callum Smith (12-0, 9 KOs) was taken the distance by a seriously tough Vladine Biosse (15-4-2, 7 KOs) in going 10 rounds on Saturday night to win a 10 round unanimous decision.

Smith looked all arms and legs in loading up on pretty much everything he threw at the southpaw Biosse, but what we discovered was that Smith’s power wasn’t nearly as impressive against a decent quality fighter than it had been against the poor 3rd tier opposition that he’d built his knockout record on coming into this fight.

The judges scored the fight 100-89, 99-91, and 99-91.

What was surprising about the fight was how often Biosse was able to land the 6’3″ Smith with left hands in the fight. Smith’s defense was poor to say the least, and his hand speed not impressive either. Biosse exposed both of those areas tonight, and he also showed that Smith can’t fight on the inside to save his life. Had it been Andre Ward in the ring with Smith tonight inside of Biosse, I’m afraid we would have seen we would have seen a lopsided 10 round decision by Ward or better yet, a knockout win for him. I lost track of how many times Biosse nailed Smith with hard shots in this fight, and that shouldn’t have happened.

Overall, Smith didn’t look impressive at all. I rate Carl Froch, James DeGale and George Groves well above Smith in the talent department. Smith looks like a guy really should be fighting in the light heavyweight division, because he was giant in the ring next to the smallish Biosse. Once Smith has to move up to 175, he’s going to have major problems against the likes of Adonis Stevenson and Sergey Kovalev, both of which are more powerful than him.

Other boxing results on the card:

Luke Campbell pts 6 Craig Woodruff
Anthony Ogogo TKO 5 Wayne Reed
Rocky Fielding TKO 5 Noe Gonzalez Alcoba
Stephen Smith pts 8 Pedro Navarrete



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