By Scott Gilfoid: It looks like the World Boxing Organization has lowered the bar for allowing fighters to challenge for their title, because on Saturday night their WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (24-0, 11 KO’s) is not only fighting a guy in Shawn Hawk (23-2-1, 17 KO’s) that isn’t ranked in the top 15 by any of the sanctioning bodies but he’s also coming off of a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision loss to Elieder Alvarez last June.

I think Alvarez is a good fighter and there’s definitely no shame in Hawk losing to that guy. But it’s not everyday that you see non-ranked fighters coming off of a loss getting a title shot on national television on Showtime. That’s highly unusual. I’m surprised Showtime said yes to this fight. If it were me I’d say ‘No deal. You either find a quality opponent to fight or you’re not going to be televised on my network.’ Someone has got to be looking out for boxing fans to protect them from dreadful mismatches like this.

I was able to get my hands on Hawk’s 2009 fight against Matt Godfrey today. Hawk lost that fight by a lopsided 10 round unanimous decision and I was struck by how poor Hawk looked in that fight. Godfrey, who I hardly see as a great fighter, totally dominated Hawk and beat him about as bad as a fighter can beat another one without knocking them out.

I just wonder if Showtime’s management has even seen Hawk fight before? If they had I doubt they’d have said yes to this match. They must have just seen his record and then said yes without seeing who he’d actually beaten during his career.

Cleverly is giving new meaning to taking on soft opposition as the WBO champion. I don’t understand what the problem is with why he’s not being matched against quality opposition after a year and half as the WBO champion. But I do know I hope his fights aren’t televised in the United States anymore after Saturday unless he fights some quality opposition. He fought Tommy Karpency in his last fight and was poised to fight Ryan Coyne before that fight was blocked.

I don’t consider them quality fighters, and now Cleverly’s fighting a guy not even ranked in the top tier who is coming off of a loss. After this fight Cleverly be fighting Robin Krasniqi, another easy mark. It’s just endless and quite sad.