By Scott Gilfoid: After beating former WBO 175lb champion Nathan Cleverly by a 12 round split decision last November in a WBO cruiserweight title eliminator it was thought that Tony Bellew’s next move would be to face WBO champion Marco Huck (38-2-1, 26 KOs). After all, the Bellew-Cleverly fight was a WBO eliminator bout. But it now looks like Bellew is looking at the possibility of facing one of the other cruiserweight champions instead.
I was afraid this was going to happen. Huck is considered by many to be the best fighter in the cruiserweight division right now.
If he’s not the best, he’s right up there at No.2 or 3. Huck is kind of crude fighter in terms of his fighting style, but he’s got major punching power, the type of power that would likely give Bellew nightmares.
We saw what happened to Bellew when he faced a good puncher at 175 when he was blown out by Adonis Stevenson. When Bellew moved up to cruiserweight, he even had problems with Valery Brudov, who had him badly hurt in the 8th. Brudov isn’t half the puncher that Huck is, so I’m really not surprised that Bellew is suddenly looking at the other cruiserweight champions rather than just Huck.
“We are also speaking to the likes of Denis Lebedev,” Bellew said via Skysports.com. “He’s another one who is part of the plans. It’s not just Huck or [Yoan Pablo] Hernandez, Lebedev is an option too. We’ll look down all avenues and see which one suits us best…I will become the best cruiserweight in the world.”
This sounds like Bellew doesn’t have any intention in fighting Huck. You know, I’m so not surprised, because I never expected Bellew to take that fight anyway even though he fought in a WBO cruiserweight title eliminator bout. As dangerous as Huck is, I figured that there was no way that Bellew’s promoter Eddie Hearn would ever put him in with the German based fighter. Huck is just too good, too powerful and too dangerous for a guy like Bellew.
When Bellew says “see which one suits us best,” that sounds to me to be code for they’ll look for the easiest mark of the cruiserweight champions. I hate to break this to Bellew, but all of the cruiserweights are pretty darn good. I see the weak link being Yoan Pablo Hernandez, but even he would be a real problem for Bellew because Hernandez can fight.
I see Hernandez as being the guy that Hearn will look to setup a fight for Bellew, because all of the other cruiserweight champions have a ton of power, good chins and excellent technical skills. Hernandez, as good as he is, he’s got a chin problem that has been exposed in the past.
Denis Lebedev and Grigory Drozd are simply too dangerous for Bellew in my view. Those guys can punch, and they would have no problems walking Bellew down and knocking him out in short order. If Bellew faces either of them, which I highly doubt, I don’t see him making it past the 6th unless he runs.
As for Bellew facing Huck, I think Bellew would have to be dragged into the ring kicking and screaming before he’d face this guy. A fight like that is pretty much a guaranteed loss for Bellew.
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