By Scott Gilfoid: WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (23-0, 11 KO’s) is targeting 46-year-old WBC light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins (52-6-2, 32 KO’s) for 2012 rather than the guy that was handling Hopkins recently, Chad Dawson.

In a column at thesun.co.uk, Frank Warren, the promoter for Cleverly, said “I would fancy him [Cleverly] against any of the title holders: Bernard Hopkins, Tavoris Cloud and Beibut Shumenov. Hopkins is on top of my list for a fight in Wales next year, I believe Cleverly would be a match for the executioner.”

I agree with Warren that Cleverly would probably beat Hopkins at this late stage in his career. Hopkins has shown in his last few fights that he’s having problems with his work rate. He’s not throwing a lot of punches anymore and that would give Cleverly a big chance to win if he can somehow pry Hopkins off of him long enough to throw punches.

But that’s not saying a whole lot, because I thought Hopkins was about to be embarrassed in his last fight against Chad Dawson. The injury that Hopkins sustained by falling down in the 2nd round against Dawson may have saved Hopkins from a one-sided loss. I don’t rate Cleverly as being anywhere near as good as Dawson, but I think he can outwork a soon to be 47-year-old Hopkins at this point.

I disagree that Cleverly could beat Shumenov and Cloud. That won’t happen. We just saw Cleverly struggle badly with Tony Bellew, and I had that fight a draw. If you can’t conclusively beat a fighter like Bellew, who’s ranked number #13 by the WBO, then Cleverly has absolutely no business being in the ring with young guys like Shumenov and Cloud. Those guys also throw a lot of punches like Cleverly, but they both have better power. If Cleverly faces them, he’ll either get knocked out or take a bad beating. If I was Warren, I would push for the Hopkins fight instead. It’s the safer pick and would give Cleverly a bigger payday.

Warren needs to keep Cleverly away from Dawson. That would be a one-sided affair. Dawson is just too big, too skilled and too fast for Cleverly. Dawson eats up slow guys that lead with their face like Cleverly. It would be like feeding a 50s type fighter to Dawson and the ultimate outcome of putting a limited throwback fighter like Cleverly in with Dawson would be a scene where Cleverly is literally torn apart.

Dawson likely wouldn’t want to fight Cleverly in the UK, so that also makes Dawson a less desirable option. It would be bad for him if he did come to the UK. We just saw Bellew lost by a score of 117-112 to Cleverly on one of the judges’ scorecards. I can only imagine what the scorecards would be for a Cleverly-Dawson fight in the UK.

I doubt a Hopkins-Cleverly fight is doable in 2012, 2013 or 2014. Hopkins won’t go to the UK. He’s said in the past he doesn’t want to have to travel to another fighters’ hometown to fight. And a Cleverly-Hopkins fight will attract zero interest in the U.S; we’re talking nobody. Who want to see a fight between Hopkins and someone you’ve never heard of before? Hopkins is better off facing guys like Canadian based Lucian Bute or Cloud. Cleverly is someone way, way, way down on the list and it’s not a doable fight unless Hopkins comes to the UK to make it happen, and that’s not going to happen.

My advice for Cleverly is to fight Bellew again and with a different set of judges. Cleverly didn’t prove he’s better than Bellew. As such, he’s still right back where he started at before the Bellew fight. If you don’t pass a class in school, you don’t advance. It should be the same in boxing.