By Scott Gilfoid: Bernard Hopkins (52-6-2, 32 KO’s) will be fighting on March 9th against one of the light heavyweight champions on March 9th at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, and WBO light heavyweight belt holder Nathan Cleverly (25-0, 12 KO’s) is hoping that he’s the guy that gets the fight after a so-so performance against B level fighter Shawn Hawk (23-3-1, 17 KO’s) last Saturday night at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.

Cleverly has some serious competition from IBF champion Tavoris Cloud and WBA champion Beibut Shumenov, both of whom are in the running for the Hopkins fight on March 9th.

Cleverly said to thesun.co.uk “I’ll be breaking hearts if Hopkins agrees to fight me…I’m not established at world level and that sort of big match is definitely on the cards for me.”

I wouldn’t exactly say that Cleverly is established anything close that. I think a lot of boxing fans see Cleverly as a paper champion with weak power and totally unproven. Established fighters, to me, are ones that have taken on the best in the division, such as Chad Dawson, Hopkins, Jean Pascal, Cloud, Shumenov, Ismayl Sillakh, Denis Grachev, Zsolt Erdei, Jurgen Brahmer and Mikkel Kessler. The last time I checked these are the best guys that Cleverly has faced at light heavyweight: Tony Bellew, Aleksy Kuziemski, Karo Murat, Tommy Karpency, and Shawn Hawk. I’m sorry but I don’t consider that list as being good enough to make anyone an established champion. Cleverly can say he’s established after beating those guys but it kind of seems a little silly. The resume of work just isn’t there yet and his performance against Hawk left a lot to be desired.

Cleverly figures he did a good job of impressing the American boxing public with his 8th round TKO win over Hawk, but in reading some of the reactions from fans in internet boxing forums it doesn’t look like that’s entirely the case. Cleverly got hit way too much for the caliber of opponent he was facing and it wasn’t exactly motivating to see Cleverly hurt by a big right hand from Hawk at one point in the fight. Impressive performance? No. A mediocre is more like it.

If I’m Hopkins I would opt to fight Cloud or Shumenov in March because either of those guys are better known in the United States at this point compared to Cleverly. If Cleverly wants to fight Hopkins he needs to stick around and make a name for himself by fighting in the U.S and beating four or five of the top fighters on my list before talking about a Hopkins fight.