By Scott Gilfoid: #14 WBO Tony Bellew (18-1, 12 KO’s) hopes to put himself in position to where he can get a title shot against WBC light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson (31-2, 17 KO’s) in early 2013 if the 29-year-old Bellew can get past #5 WBC Roberto Feliciano Bolonti (30-1, 19 KO’s) in their fight on November 17th on the undercard of the Carl Froch vs. Yusaf Mack fight at the Capital FM Arena, in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom.

Bellew and Bolonti will be fighting for the vacant WBC Silver light heavyweight title. With all the titles that litter boxing I’m not surprised that a trinket was found for this fight to somehow validate it. A strap for a #14 contender in Bellew and a little known fighter in Bolonti to fight for.

Bellew said to Sky Sports “I believe Chad Dawson is the best light heavyweight in the world, but I would be happy to fight him.”

The way Bellew sees it, a win over the #5 WBC Bolonti will put him in position to get a title shot against Dawson early next year.

What Bellew seems to be forgetting is he’s ranked near the bottom by the World Boxing Organization and has no ranking at all by the WBC in the top 15 at this time. It doesn’t make sense for the WBC then to turn around and give Bellew a top five ranking just because he beats their little known #5 WBC contender Bolonti.

That’s not realistic and I hope Bellew isn’t hoping for that actually to happen. The likely scenario is for Bellew, if he beats the obscure fighter Bolonti, to get a nice bottom 15 ranking by the World Boxing Council. This is in turn will put Bellew on course to get a title shot against Dawson in possibly three to four years at best.

Dawson isn’t going to waste time picking from the bottom to fight Bellew, because there’s no money fighting a little known Brit like Bellew in the United States. As such, if Bellew wants the fight with Dawson he’s probably going to have to wait until he’s ranked #1 by the wBC, and like I said, that’ll probably be in three or four years. It takes awhile for bottom ranked fighters to get pushed to number #1.

It’s not done over night and there’s a lot of other arguably more talented fighters ranked ahead of Bellew that are waiting for their chance at a title shot against Dawson. We’re talking guys like Issac Chilemba, Lucian Bute, Cornelius White, Eduard Gutknecht, Denis Grachev, Ismayl Sillkah, and many, many more. Bellew is just going to have to wait in line and I figure by the time he’s 33 or 34, he should get his shot at a world title strap.

Bellew needs to focus on just trying to beat Bolonti without running out of gas like he did against Nathan Cleverly last year. It would be bad to see Bellew gas out and lose again. If that happens he can forget all about fighting anyone for a world title for many years.