By Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn has setup a rematch between former WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (28-1, 14 KOs) and #5 WBC, #5 WBO, #11 IBF Tony Bellew (22-2-1, 14 KOs) will battle it out on November 22nd at the ExCel Arena in Liverpool, UK.
They already fought each other in 2011 in a fight that Cleverly won, but it was close enough to make an argument that there should be a rematch.
The whole point in the rematch obviously is the money that the two fighters can make because both of their careers have taken a hit with them losing to more talented fighters in Adonis Stevenson and Sergey Kovalev.
Hearn is pushing to get the winner of the Bellew-Cleverly 2 fight to face WBO cruiserweight champion Marco Huck, and it’s going to be interesting to see if he can pull that trick off.
If so, that means that the winner of that fight will be skipping over Krzysztof Glowacki, Vikapita Meroro, Nuri Seferi and Grigory Drozd. The winner of the Bellew-Cleverly fight could also be potentially getting a shot ahead of Thabiso Mchunu, who many boxing fans feel is the best contender in the entire division bar none.
Cleverly, #6 WBO, #10 IBF, #11 WBA, #15 WBC, has picked up a couple of wins recently in beating Alejandro Valori and Shawn Corbin since he was thrashed by Sergey Kovalev a year ago. Hearn has been matching Cleverly extra careful it seems because neither of those guys were major players in the cruiserweight division.
“This is about putting this right, about ending him,” Bellew said. “His face will be in my mind every day in camp, every night. I can’t explain how badly I want to knock him out and that’s exactly how it will end in November. For the people of Liverpool, expect a great occasion, an epic build up and an emotional fight.”
Bellew sounds almost obsessed with avenging his loss to Cleverly from three years ago. It’s too bad Bellew isn’t as wound up about avenging his knockout loss to Stevenson. That’s the troubling part. If Bellew is going to work himself into a lather about Cleverly, then why not about his loss to Stevenson?
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