By Scott Gilfoid: After struggling badly to beat his number #13 ranked contender Tony Bellew last Saturday night by a 12 round majority decision, WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (23-0, 11 KO’s) is now targeting the WBC light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson (31-1, 18 KO’s) for his next fight.

Cleverly told frankwarren.tv “I would fancy taking on Dawson at the Millennium Stadium next year. Hopkins probably wants an immediate rematch with Dawson after that ending, so that will hold things up for a while, but a Dawson fight is one I’d be confident in winning.”

Let me get this straight. Cleverly barely beats his #13 ranked contender Bellew, and gets what I consider a gift decision, and now he thinks he can beat Dawson? I don’t mind a fighter to have a little confidence but Cleverly is off the charts. He’s not thinking rational. Barely beating Bellew doesn’t translate into having the skills to beat Dawson.

What it means is Cleverly is good enough to lose every round against Dawson, and not get knocked out. That’s the best I can say for Cleverly in a fight against Dawson. I’m sorry but Dawson would have a field day against a guy with no defensive skills like Cleverly. It would be embarrassing. Dawson is used to fighting guys that are good and know how to fight. He hasn’t faced an inexperienced guy who leads with his face like Cleverly for ages. It would be a massacre if Dawson were to take this fight.

Cleverly will need to put a sock in it for a while because Dawson doesn’t plan on fighting Hopkins next. Actually, Dawson doesn’t want to go over old ground and waste time on Hopkins again. Dawson is looking to fight former WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal next and Pascal has already agreed to take the fight. Cleverly is a little behind on the news. It’s not Hopkins, it’s Pascal that Dawson will be fighting next.

As far as Dawson coming to the UK to fight Cleverly in 2012, that’s not going to happen either. Dawson isn’t crazy. He’s not going to go to the UK, where he’d likely be in a situation where he’d have to knock Cleverly cold to ensure he got the win. He’s not going to go there, dominate every round and find himself on the losing end of some crazy score like 117-112, which just happened to be one of the scores that was handed down in Cleverly’s win over Bellew last Saturday. I could see that happening.

Dawson makes Clevelry look silly and then he loses the fight. So Cleverly needs to put that idea out of his head about Dawson coming to the UK. If Cleverly is so lathered up for fighting Dawson, then he needs to come to the U.S to take the fight otherwise don’t even bother talking about the fight. Dawson, a three-time champion, is the more established fighter and there’s no reason he should have to travel to the UK to fight a guy that isn’t considered to be the best of the champions.