By Scott Gilfoid: For some reason WBC cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew (28-2-1, 18 KOs) isn’t calling out the talented unbeaten World Boxing Organization cruiserweight champion Oleksandr Usyk (10-0, 9 KOs) for a fight. I’m having a hard time trying to understand why the 33-year-old Bellew failed to even utter Usyk’s name last Saturday night when he was flapping his gums about being the “best cruiserweight in the world” after his 3rd round knockout over a totally over-matched #14 WBC BJ Flores (32-3-1, 20 KOs) at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, England. It wasn’t even a match.
Flores, 37, had recently been trounced by Beibut Shumenov last year in a totally one-sided loss. Bellew basically did the same thing Shumenov did in giving Flores a royal pounding from pillar to post.
The only difference is Shumenov didn’t hit Flores low, and then tee off on him while he was doubled over in pain from the low blow. Bellew nailed Flores with a low blow in the 2nd, and then poured it on as he winced in pain from the shot. The referee didn’t stop the action despite it being painfully obvious that Flores had been hit low.
Here’s what Bellew said after his mismatch against bottom feeder BJ Flores:
“Come and fight a real world champion. I am the best cruiserweight in the world.”
It’s interesting that Bellew isn’t pushing hard to fight Usyk in his next fight. Heck, Bellew isn’t even talking about fighting his unbeaten mandatory challenger Mairis Briedis (21-0, 18 KOs), who fought on his undercard last Saturday night in doing a 3rd round demolition job of previously unbeaten British cruiserweight Simon Vallily (9-1, 2 KOs).
I hate to say it, but I thought Vallily looked a lot more talented than Flores. I mean, if that had been Bellew fighting Vallily last Saturday night instead of Flores, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bellew hit the deck a couple of times. Vallily displayed good punching power in that fight despite losing to Briedis.
Instead of Bellew calling out Usyk, 29, for a unification fight, he was talking about wanting to fight David Haye in his next fight. That’s all Bellew could talk about was Haye after the fight rather than mentioning Usyk or Briedis’ names. I just got the overall impression that Bellew is looking to cash out as fast as he can before the World Boxing Council forces him to fight Briedis, which they already should have done.
What’s going to be REALLY sad is if Bellew is allowed to keep his WBC cruiserweight title after he moves up to fight Haye in March, and winds up getting knocked out by him in one or two rounds. You can argue that the fair thing for the WBC to do at that point would be to immediately strip Bellew once he’s lost to Haye.
Frankly, I think the WBC should strip Bellew the moment he moves up and takes the fight with Haye at heavyweight, because it’s not fair to the contenders in the WBC’s top 15 rankings, because they’re just sitting there waiting while Bellew takes a fight outside of the division against Haye. I don’t think that’s right. If this were the NFL and one of the teams decided they wanted to skip a game so that they could go play a team from another football league, it’s highly doubtful that the NFL would bow down and let the team do that. It should be the same thing in boxing. If Bellew wants to fight at heavyweight against Haye, then he should be stripped of his WBC strap so that the serious contenders can fight for the belt. In that case, Briedis would be fighting for the vacant WBC cruiserweight title against #2 WBC Marco Huck for the title.
After Bellew comes back down to the cruiserweight division after his fight against Haye, likely licking his wounds, he can always get at the end of the line at No.15 in the WBC’s rankings and work his way back to a title shot the hard way by fighting the talented lions. Of course, Bellew could go after WBO champion Usyk to try and get a crack at his title. If Bellew believes he can beat the Ukrainian talent, then he can go that route. I wish Bellew a lot of luck, because I think he would need it.
Bellew vs. Usyk would be a mismatch in my view. The southpaw Usyk has too much power, too much talent, and too much ability for a limited fighter like Bellew to beat him. I think it’s great that Bellew’s promoter Eddie Hearn was able to maneuver him into a title shot against Ilunga Makabu last May. Hearn did a great job of picking from the bottom of the WBC’s rankings to put him in with the 37-year-old Flores rather than having Bellew fight his #1 WBC mandatory Briedis like he was supposed to do after winning the vacant WBC title. That was a great move by Hearn. However, we’d like to see Bellew actually prove that he’s the best cruiserweight in the division rather than him just blabbering it over and over again without proving it.
From the looks of it, I think Bellew is going to get his cash out fight against Haye in March rather than be required to defend against his mandatory challenger Briedis. It’ll be interesting for me to see if the WBC lets Bellew keep his WBC title if he gets whipped by Haye. If champions like Bellew are allowed to free their titles while they move around and fight other guys from other divisions, I think it’s bad for the contenders.
“Going up is not an issue,” Bellew said eagerly as he spoke of his ability to move up to heavyweight to fight David Haye. “I have a good team around me, we will make the sacrifices and the things that need to be done, will be done. Eddie will come up with that and help deal with it. But it’s not an issue.”
So there it is. Bellew will move up to heavyweight, and his WBC cruiserweight title will be frozen while he’s gone, I guess.