By Scott Gilfoid: Former WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (28-1, 14 KOs) and former WBC Silver 175 pound strap holder Tony Bellew (22-2, 14 KOs) will square off in a WBO cruiserweight title eliminator on December 6th in Sheffield, UK, according to Fightnews.com.
The Cleverly-Bellew 2 fight will take place on IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook’s fight card, and it might actually live the card up if Brook is matched against a soft job instead of a talented fighter.
It’s thought by some boxing fans that Hearn won’t take any chances with Brook in order to keep him from getting beaten before he gets a big money fight against Amir Khan next year. Brook didn’t look good in beat Shawn Porter last month. He didn’t show the kind of talent needed to where you could pick him as a rock solid lock to defeat the likes of Devon Alexander and certainly not at all against a talent like Keith Thurman.
#6 WBO Cleverly and #5 WBO Bellew are an unlikely pair to be fighting in a WBO eliminator bout, because neither of them have taken on a live body since moving up to the cruiserweight division. They’ve both had two easy fights against soft jobs since moving up in weight, and it’s hard to understand what the World Boxing Organization was thinking of when they ranked them above #9 WBO Thabisio Mchunu.
That guy isn’t a household name, for knowledgeable boxing fans, they know that Mchunu is a major talent and should arguably be ranked No.1 by all four of the sanctioning bodies. I could see Mchunu beating Bellew and Cleverly back to back on the same night. He’s a really good fighter, and it’s sad that he’s being leap frogged over.
The winner of the Bellew-Cleverly 2 fight is going to have his work cut out for him against WBO cruiserweight champion Marco Huck. I can’t see either of Cleverly or Bellew making it the distance with Huck. He has too much power and those guys are kind of chinny.
Cleverly is coming off of a 4th round against a fighter names Alejandro Valori last July. It was a simple mismatch with the much bigger Cleverly being put in with a chubby short fighter without much power.
I was stunned at how bad Valori looked. The guy looked like climbed off the couch to take the fight. Bellew defeated Julio Cesar Dos Santos by a 5th round TKO last July. Bellew was staggered in the fight and didn’t look good. This is the third straight fight in which Bellew has been hurt. In Bellew’s fight before the Dos Santos fight, Valery Brudov had Bellew out on his feet in the 8th round. But Bellew was able to come back and stop him in the 12th.
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