By Scott Gilfoid: Light heavyweight Tony Bellew (17-1, 11 KO’s) has had problems in the past when taking solid shots on his chin, and he’s lucky to have escaped his first fight with Ovil McKenzie in December 2010 without getting knocked out.

As it is, Bellew visited the canvas twice before he started playing it safe. In their rematch, Bellew stayed away from punching with McKenzie and instead boxed his way to a decision. That was the last time that the 29-year-old Bellew faced a fighter with any kind of power. Bellew has fought twice since then, losing to WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly by a 12 round decision and then beating Danny McIntosh by a 5th round TKO last April.

However, things are going to be changing dramatically for the tall 6’2″ Bellew on September 8th, because he’s going to be facing the powerful Colombian Edison Miranda (35-7, 30 KO’s) in a fight for the vacant WBC International light heavyweight title at the Alexandra Palace, Muswell Hill, in London, England.

Miranda, 31, has the power to knock Bellew if he can catch up to the Brit to deliver his huge payload. I don’t for a second think that Bellew will risk exchanging punches with Miranda, because he’s too dangerous and Bellew has already got a history of being knocked down in fights. It will be great to see who would remain standing at the end of this fight if Bellew were willing to mix it up with the hard hitting Miranda, but I expect Bellew to have his roller skates on for this fight to keep from tasting Miranda’s huge power.

Bellew has slipped out of the top 15 in the world rankings. I suppose it might have been the combination of Bellew’s loss to Cleverly and his domestic level fight with McIntosh that did it. Instead of fighting McIntosh, Bellew should have taken on a world class opponent to try and redeem himself from the loss to Cleverly instead of going soft. Oh well, I guess it doesn’t matter because a loss to Miranda was going to do the same thing for Bellew.