By Scott Gilfoid: Earlier today, Tony Bellew (26-2-1, 16 KOs) gave up his EBU cruiserweight title that he had recently won. Bellew says he wants to pursue a world title shot against one of the cruiserweight world champions.
By vacating the EBU title, Bellew won’t need to defend the title against mandatory Dmytro Kucher. Bellew doesn’t rate Kucher as highly as he does Mateusz Masternak, who he just finished beating by a 12 round decision last month.
Now free of the EBU title and the huge responsibility that comes with it, Bellew wants a world title shot against one of the following cruiserweight champions: Victor Ramirez, Grigory Drozd, Krzysztof Glowacki or Denis Lebdev.
Ramirez, the IBF champion, seems to be the one that Bellew wants to fight most of all. However, Bellew isn’t ranked high enough to force the fight, and unless his promoter Eddie Hearn can an irresistible offer for Ramirez that he couldn’t possibly turn down, it’s likely that Bellew will need to go after one of the other champions.
The problem is the other champions are very, very solid fighters, and it might not go very well for Bellew if he faces any of them. Ramirez is arguably the weak link among the four cruiserweight champions, and probably the only guy in the bunch that Bellew has a chance to beat. Ramirez is vulnerable champion, and would likely lose to many of the top contenders. I think Ramirez would lose to pretty much all the contenders in the top 15. I can’t see him beating any of them.
I do think that Kucher is better than Masternak, a lot better in fact. I think it’s a smart move on Bellew’s part to vacate the EBU title in order not to fight Kucher, because that guy is seriously good, and he’s not a weak puncher like Masternak.
All those shots that Masternak was bouncing off of Bellew’s had would be lethal blows if the 31-year-old Kucher was the one that was throwing them. Bellew has got to try and take the path of least resistance if he ever wants to get a shot at one of the cruiserweight world titles, and that means avoiding dangerous guys like #8 WBC Kucher.
Bellew hasn’t faced tough opponent since his loss to Adonis Stevenson three years ago in 2013. Bellew has won his last six fights in beating Masternak, Arturs Kulikauskis, Ivica Bacurin, Nathan Cleverly, Julio Cesar Dos Santos and Valery Brudov.
Bellew hasn’t fought the tougher fighters like Oleansanddr Usyk, Ola Afolabi, Beibut Shumenov, Youri Kalenga, Ilunga Makabu, Olanrewaja Durodola, Marco Huck, Rakhim Chakhkiev, Murat Gassiev, and Thabiso Mchunu. He’s been pretty much facing the weaker guys since he moved up to cruiserweight, which makes it impossible to know how Bellew will do when/if he eventually does get a title shot.
All you can do is speculate based on how Bellew has done against the weaker guys like Masternak and extrapolate from there to assume that he’ll get blown out of the water by the champions unless he can get a fight against Victor Ramirez, the champ that some fans feel is the weak link among the champions.
Even if Bellew does win a world title against the likes of Ramirez, I honestly can’t see him holding onto the title for more than a couple fights at best. Bellew would be fine as long as he’s fighting voluntary defenses, but once he has to fight one of the top five contenders in the International Boxing Federation’s rankings, I see him going to pieces immediately. Bellew would need to defend against someone like Murat Gassiev, Afolabi or Micki Nielson. I can’t see Bellew beating any of those guys because they’re too good in my view.
Bellew does have the talent to win a world title, but I believe he needs to be matched against the right champion to do so. The problem is, he might need to wait a while longer before he gets a crack at Ramirez, because I do not think he’s going to throw a bone to Bellew unless his promoter Eddie Hearn comes up with a lot of money to make that happen. Ramirez has a good thing going for now with him making voluntary defenses in winnable fights. Why would he want to mess that up by facing someone like Bellew?
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