By Scott Gilfoid: 29-year-old Tony Bellew (16-1, 10 Ko’s) has been left in the dust by WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (23-0, 11 Ko’s) after losing a controversial 12 round majority decision to him last October. Cleverly won the fight by the scores of 116-113, 117-112 and 114-114.

A lot of boxing fans saw the fight as a draw, which is how I saw it. No way did Cleverly do enough to win the fight and it seems like a no brainer that this is a fight that calls for a rematch. Most fighters would do the honorable thing and give Bellew a rematch given the controversial decision, but Cleverly no interest in doing that for some reason. It appears he’s happy with his win and is moving on.

I think it’s a bad move because when you have exciting fight that ends in a controversial decision like the Cleverly-Bellew fight did, then it’s imperative that a rematch is given to fix the problem in order to give boxing fans a clear winner. But for a fighter like Cleverly to dash off as if he won by a mandate, then it’s just off putting and bad for the sport.

Bellew told fighthype.com “I didn’t think I lost. I’m disgusted that I’m not getting an immediate rematch…I refuse to believe that Cleverly beat me. That’s why I want a rematch.”

Although Cleverly has only been the World Boxing Organization light heavyweight champion for all of two fights, he’s not exactly impressed with the kinds of fights he’s took and the ones he’s not taken. He could fight Enzo Maccarinelli and doesn’t. He wants to fight an old 46-year-old Bernard Hopkins and says nothing about Chad Dawson, the guy is about to pick up the WBC title one or another. It just seems like cherry picking from Cleverly. I wonder if Cleverly thought Bellew would be an easy fight when he signed on for that one? I guess Bellew was a big surprise for him and now he wants no part of him again. A good champion would want to fight a guy like Bellew again to prove himself but it looks like Cleverly is looking to take the safe route by avoiding the rematch.