By Scott Gilfoid: Having sparred with both Tony Bellew (16-0, 10 KO’s) and WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (22-0, 11 KO’s) in the past, former 2008 middleweight Olympic Gold medalist and former British super middleweight champion James DeGale (10-1, 8 KO’s) is going with Bellew. 28, to knock Cleverly out on Saturday night at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, England.

DeGale told Steve Bunce on his Bunce’s Boxing Hour on BoxNation “I sparred with Bellew about a year ago. Ferocious sparring; He’s a good fighter. I sparred with Cleverly before my last fight [with George Groves]. It was a different kind of spar [compared to Bellew]. I don’t want to say too much. Spars are different. I don’t want to call it but Bellew hits very, very hard. Very hard. People underestimate his boxing ability as well…If I was going to bet on it, put my house on it. I’d say Bells is gonna knock him out.”

There it folks. Bellew is going to score a knockout on Saturday and I’m going with DeGale, who knows the two of the fighters like the back of his hand because of his previous sparring with them. I had been siding with Cleverly to win this fight but after some recent painstaking research on both fighters, I had already come to the conclusion that Bellew is going to obliterate Cleverly in this fight.

A small part of it was how vulnerable Cleverly looked each time he got cracked on the chin in his fights against Karo Murat and Aleksy Kuziemski. Cleverly was so wide open to every shot those fighters threw at him, and that’s kind of how Cleverly always fights. But if you’re there to be hit against a big slugger like Bellew, he’s going to knock you out and badly hurt you with his huge power. As such, I completely agree with DeGale on this.

Cleverly is going to get knocked by Bellew. I also agree with DeGale that Bellew has amazing boxing skills, better than Cleverly’s skills.Cleverly can’t win no matter what he does in this fight.