By William Mackay: WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (24-0, 11 KO’s) is still hoping to land a fight against either 47-year-old Bernard Hopkins or WBA light heavyweight champion Beibut Shumenov in Wales in 2013. Cleverly first has to get by #7 WBO Vyacheslav Uzelkov (27-2, 16 KO’s) on October 27th next month at the Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom.

Cleverly would like to fight next summer in the huge 50,000 seat Cardiff City Stadium in Wales, but he likely needs a big name like Hopkins to sell out the stadium. Shumenov probably won’t do it, and he’s already said that prefers to fight Cleverly in Las Vegas, Nevada rather than traveling to Wales to take the fight.

Cleverly told Walesonline.co.uk “Bernard Hopkins has whispered that he wants a fight in January and that would be a good fight. Shumenov wants to fight and it’s just a matter of sorting a deal and TV dates. He is very reluctant to come here…If he comes here he will get beaten.”

Cleverly might have problems beating Shumenov in Las Vegas, so he might not want to fight him there because Shumenov is a good fighter. Cleverly barely beat fringe contender Tony Bellew in a controversial 12 round majority decision last October. Shumenov is a step above Bellew, and Cleverly is going to have to improve a ton if he’s to beat Shumenov in Las Vegas. But Cleverly is probably right about being able to beat Shumenov in Wales. Cleverly is hard to beat at home and Shumenov might be putting himself in a bad situation if he agrees to fight Cleverly there.

It’s difficult to say what Hopkins will do next. He lost his last fight against Chad Dawson last April, and he’s been inactive since then. Hopkins hasn’t said anything about any upcoming fights, so it’s possible he might not fight until next year.

Cleverly really shouldn’t be overlooking the 33-year-old Uzelkov, because this guy can really punch and he’s going to be going into the Cleverly fight looking for a KO win because he’s fighting Cleverly in Wales.

In the year that Cleverly has held the World Boxing Organization 175 pound title, he’s been something of a disappointing champion because he’s been unable to fight the big name guys. He doesn’t seem interested in fighting Chad Dawson for some reason, and has had to settle for guys like Bellew, Tommy Karpency, Aleksy Kuziemski and now Uzelkov.

Getting the big names, if you want to call them that, to come to Wales might be difficult for Cleverly because it’s likely that the top fighters are reluctant to want to fight him in his own home venue for fear of losing by a controversial decision. The money obviously would be good but perhaps good enough to risk getting a controversial loss. Cleverly might to travel to other parts of the world if he’s truly interested in taking on the best, because he doesn’t big enough name for the top guys to want to come fight in his venue. Cleverly doesn’t need to fight the top guys because he continue to merely defend his title against the top contenders like Robin Krasniqi #1 WBO, Braimah Komoho #2 WBO, Jurgen Brahman #3 WBO, Dustin Dirks #4 WBO, and Eduard Gutknecht #5.