By Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn says that #15 IBF fringe contender Nathan Cleverly (28-2, 14 KOs) will be getting a world title shot in late 2015, possibly in September.
What’s so interesting about this is that Cleverly was recently beaten by Tony Bellew last year in November in a WBO cruiserweight title eliminator.
Bellew beat him by a 12 round split decision by the scores of 115-113, 116-112 and 115-115-114 for Cleverly. Bellew will be getting a title shot against WBO champion Marco Huck, and he’s obviously going to have a really tough time trying to win that fight. But what is really strange is that Cleverly will still be getting a world title shot despite the fact that he lost the fight.
Hearn isn’t saying which sanctioning body will be letting Cleverly fight for a world title with his low ranking and him coming off of a loss. It would be interesting to know.
“It looks like he’ll [Cleverly] be getting a world title shot as well,” Hearn said via IFL TV. “Nathan Cleverly will be back at light heavyweight and he will fight for a world title before the end of the year, probably in September. It’s virtually already done.”
Wow, that is interesting, isn’t it? Cleverly gets beaten by Bellew in a WBO title eliminator, and now both guys are going to be fighting for a world title. Heck, why did they even bother wasting time fighting in an eliminator bout if losing meant you would still get a world title shot.
Cleverly is going to have a really tough time no matter which champion he faces. His lack of punching power is going to create problems for him when he gets in the ring with one of the following light heavyweight champions: Sergey Kovalev, Jurgen Braehmer and Adonis Stevenson. Those guys can all punch and it’s going to mean that Cleverly will take a lot of heavy shots by guys that have similar power as Sergey Kovalev, who destroyed Cleverly in 4 rounds in 2013. My guess is Hearn will target Braehmer for the Cleverly fight, because there’s no way you can match Cleverly back again with Kovalev because no one would want to see that fight. Further, Stevenson is just too dangerous for Cleverly.
As for Bellew, he’s really going to have problems against Marco Huck, because he has major power and he’s going to be teeing off on Bellew with each power shot. If someone like Adonis Stevenson was able to destroy Bellew in lightning fashion in their fight in 2013 in stopping him in 6 rounds, you can only imagine what a bigger puncher like Huck will do to Bellew once he catches up to him and starts unloading with some of his bombs.
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