By Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn says that the November 22nd rematch between former WBO 175 belt holder Nathan Cleverly and Tony Bellew will be an official world title eliminator for one of the cruiserweight belts.
Hearn isn’t saying which title it’ll be an eliminator for but he thinks that it’ll be a WBO cruiserweight title eliminator so that the winner will face Marco Huck. That in itself is pretty surprising because it means that the winner of the Bellew-Cleverly 2 fight will leap frog over the higher ranked contenders by the WBO.
Hearn also says that the loser of the Bellew vs. Cleverly 2 fight will be getting a world title shot as well, because he seems to think that the other three champions will be interested in taking on the loser of that fight.
“My best bet would be that the winner fights Marco Huck for the WBO title,” Hearn said to the Dailymail.co.uk. But in reality I think the loser will also get a world title shot. This is the highest profile fight in the whole division…all the title holders will want a piece of these two going forward.”
I seriously doubt that one of the other three world champions at cruiserweight is going to want to face the loser of the Bellew-Cleverly 2 fight. I mean, there’s plenty of other easy marks for them to fight in the division rather than having to select a guy that was recently beaten. If the idea is for one of the champions to fight a soft job, then they don’t need to look for a guy that was beaten for them to find a guy that fits that description.
It’s too bad that Cleverly and Bellew don’t have to face some of the talented contenders in the cruiserweight division in order to get a world title shot because I’d much prefer to see them fighting the likes of Thabisio Mchunu or Rakim Chakiem for them to prove themselves against one of those guys before they get a title shot instead of fighting each other.
I don’t think Bellew or Cleverly could even hang with light heavyweight prospect Artur Beterbiev if he were to move up to cruiserweight to face both of them in back to back fights.
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