By Scott Gilfoid: WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (24-0, 11 KO’s) sees his fight this Saturday night against little known American Shawn Hawk (23-2-1, 17 KO’s) as a step forward towards establishing Cleverly as a star in the U.S. Cleverly will be fighting Hawk on the uncard of the Abner Mares vs. Anselmo Moreno in a fight that will be aired on Showtime at the Staples Center, in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Cleverly said to the dailystar.co.uk “It’s an opportunity for me to take my career to that next level.”

I don’t think a fight against Hawk, a second tier fighter without a top 15 ranking, is going to do anything for Cleverly’s career in the U.S. Granted, Cleverly is talking about a potential unification bout against one of the light heavyweight champions next year in the U.S, but I don’t think that’ll do the trick either.

Cleverly get his name on the map if he were to fight and defeat WBC light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson next year, but that’s not likely the fight that Cleverly and his promoter have in mind. They’re likely looking at getting fights against either IBF light heavyweight champion Tavoris Cloud or WBA champion Beibut Shumenov. Beating those guys, which I don’t think Cleverly can do, won’t do the trick because neither are big stars in the U.S.

Heck, Cleverly could beat both of them and he’d still have few fans in the U.S in terms of casual boxing fans. No, Cleverly needs to beat Chad Dawson and then hope that Bernard Hopkins will want to fight him. Those are the only two fights that will make a name for Cleverly, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. Cleverly’s promoter can definitely lure Dawson into fighting him if they throw enough money at him, but will they want to do that? I doubt it. Dawson may have looked absolutely horrible in losing to the talented WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Andre Ward last September by a 10th round stoppage, but he’s more than good enough to handle the likes of Cleverly even on his worst night.

There are levels in boxing and Dawson is clearly on a higher rung than Cleverly. The same goes for Hopkins. If Cleverly’s promoter offers Hopkins ridiculously huge money to fight Cleverly in the United States, then I could see Hopkins taking the fight. However, I don’t how the fight would pay for itself because you can’t make Cleverly vs. Hopkins a pay per view fight in the U.S because you’d likely be lucky if it sold 50,000 PPV buys. I mean, who would want to pay for that? To make that fight happen in the U.S, Cleverly’s promoter would likely have to be willing to eat some losses in putting it together. I don’t think money would be there for a profit to be made on such a fight. But it would be an investment. If Cleverly were to beat Hopkins, he might make a little name for himself. However, given that Hopkins is 47 and about to turn 48, it might not impress boxing fans all that much.

My advice would be for Cleverly to forget about Shumenov and Cloud and focus on trying to get the Dawson fight. Beating him would be a huge step in trying to become a star in the U.S. Then Cleverly try and lure Andre Ward into fighting him. Beating him would be another big feather in Cleverly’s hat. He won’t beat him, though, and I don’t think he would ever try to fight Ward in the first place.