By William Mackay: Unbeaten light heavyweight contender Nathan Cleverly (20-0, 10 KO’s) will have to wait a little while longer before he gets his title shot against World Boxing Organization (WBO) light heavyweight champion Jurgen Brahmer. Instead of facing Cleverly, Brahmer is looking to take on WBA light heavyweight champion Beibut Shumenov next, according to boxing news from the BBC. Cleverly will be fighting on December 11th at the Echo Arena, in Liverpool. As of now, no opponent has been picked out for Cleverly.

However, number #8 ranked WBO light heavyweight contender Alejandro Lakatos (31-5-2, 23 KO’s) on the 12/11 card. This is a fight that will be for the WBO light heavyweight interim title. If Cleverly, 23, wins this fight, he could in theory be fighting for two light heavyweight titles against the winner of the Shumenov-Brahmer fight, as long as that fight goes through. Brahmer has a 16 month prison term he’s appealing, and if that doesn’t go through, he’ll be out of action for awhile.

Cleverly defeated #1 ranked WBO contender Karo Murat by an impressive 10 round TKO in his last fight on September 18th. Cleverly jumped on Murat early and really hammered him with a constant flow of withering fire. Murat, a hard puncher, never really got a chance to get his own offense in gear because Cleverly never seemed to stop punching for an instant. It was a completely one-sided fight that probably should have been stopped much earlier than the 10th round.

Lakatos, 36, was defeated by Viacheslav Uzelkov in a 12 round decision loss in November 2008. However, he’s won his last two fights and recently captured the vacant WBO European light heavyweight title in February with a win over Abdelkahim Derghal. Lakatos’ previous losses have all pretty much come against excellent fighters, with defeats to Hugo Hernan Garay, Zsolt Erdei, Elvis Mihailenko and Dariusz Michalczewski.

Cleverly had this to say about fighting the winner of the Brahmer vs. Shumenov fight: “There’s a situation where there’s two world champions at the moment [Braehmer and Shumenov], they’re going to fight soon so one of them has two titles as such.”

The December 11th fight card will also have European Boxing Union (EBU) super middleweight champion Paul Smith (29-1, 15 KO’s) defending his title against unbeaten 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist James DeGale (8-0, 6 KO’s) in what will likely be a very interesting fight for as long as it lasts. DeGale has looked very good lately, knocking out his last three opponents, including a 1st round TKO of Carl Dilks on September 18th. Smith looks vulnerable and could lose his title to the young DeGale.