By Scott Gilfoid: WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (24-0, 11 KO’s) may fight a unification match against one of the other light heavyweight champion OR finally fight his mandatory challenger Dmitry Sukhotsky (18-1, 13 KO’s) of Russian next rather than face little known light hitting Robin Krasniqi next.
Cleverly said “It’s looking like it could be my mandatory fight next. If not, it’s a unification fight.”
Well if it’s going to be a unification bout don’t hold your breath waiting for Cleverly to fight a unification bout with WBC light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson, because Cleverly hasn’t shown much interest in taking on the talented Dawson and risk getting humiliated or knocked out. Believe me, if Cleverly faces any of the champions in a unification bout, it’ll be WBA champ Beibut Shumenov rather than Dawson or IBF champ Tavoris Cloud. Shumenov has already beaten by Gabriel Campillo, and I thought he lost in their rematch in January 2010 as well. Shumenov looked terrible in that fight, and is very, very lucky to have won a 12 round split decision.
In his last fight, Shumenov took a lot of punishment from 5’8″ 39-year-old Danny Santiago last year in July in Shumenov’s less than impressive 9th round TKO win. I can see Cleverly and his promoter pushing hard for the Shumenov fight, because he’s clearly the weakest link among the four light heavyweight champions. Don’t expect Cleverly go after the best guy in Dawson.
That isn’t going to happen and it doesn’t fit with the kinds of guys that Cleverly has been traditionally matched against throughout his career.
I sure hope the World Boxing Organization forces Cleverly to face the 30-year-old Sukhotsky because it’s high time and the Russian Sukhotsky deserves to get a title shot already. He is after all Cleverly’s mandatory challenger and he was supposed to have already gotten his chance but he was passed over so that Cleverly could face Tommy Karpency.
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