By Scott Gilfoid: Last March we saw #3 WBC 175 contender Isaac Chilemba (20-1-2, 9 KO’s) put on a defensive clinic in dominating #1 WBC Tony Bellew (19-1-1, 12 KO’s) for 12 rounds and then ending up with 12 round draw for his efforts in their fight at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, UK.
For boxing fans who don’t know, Bellew is from Liverpool and Chilemba is from South Africa. I still can’t forget how Bellew was trying to convince Chilemba after the fight that he had done enough to win. Bellew even told Chilemba that his own trainer had said that Bellew won. It was quite sad and actually kind of pathetic to see Bellew melting down like this. He was a kid who hadn’t got his way and he was going to pout about it.
Chilemba had Bellew missing and looking a drunk on Saturday night. It was a beautiful boxing display that Chilemba put on, and I thought a blind man could see that Chilemba won the fight.
Unfortunately, two of the judges had the scores of 114-114 and 116-115, while the third saw Chilemba dominating by the score of 116-112.
Now, I just wonder what Chilemba has to do in order to get the win. If he still couldn’t get a win the last time he fought Bellew then I’m wondering what Chilemba do to get the victory short of knocking Bellew out cold.
Bellew says he’s going to put his foot on the accelerator in the rematch on May 25th and look take the fight to Chilemba a lot more than he did last time.
Bellew thinks that a victory can be his if he only tries harder. Unfortunately it’s not really about trying harder; it’s about talent. Chilemba is simply too talented for Bellew, so that even if Bellew does try and take the fight to Chilemba a lot more than he did last time, which is probably impossible to do, it’s just going to lead to Bellew getting out-boxed.
What happened last time was that once Bellew started tasting Chilemba’s power from his counter shots, he didn’t like it and he backed off and started running. It was impressive to see Chilemba turning the tables on Bellew and putting him on the run.
For the first five rounds, it was Bellew who was pressuring Chilemba all around the ring, trying to nail him with shots. But Bellew couldn’t lay a glove on Chilemba and he kept missing over and over again.
I’d never seen anyone do that to Bellew before in the past and it was really to watch. Bellew just kept missing and doing anything he could to try and drag Chilemba into a war.
Bellew tried pushing, bumping and other roughhouse tactics but it didn’t work. Chilemba continued to fight with intelligence and school Bellew.
I’m just wondering whether the judges will get the scoring right for this fight or if we’ll see another disappointing decision where the wrong man has his hand raised at the end of the fight.
The Bellew-Chilemba rematch is on the Carl Froch vs. Mikkel Kessler II fight card at the O2 Arena in London, UK on May 25th. For some reason, Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn didn’t make this the co-feature bout. Instead, the mismatch between George Grove and Noe Gonzalez Alcoba is scheduled as the co-feature and that doesn’t make sense at all because Alcoba looked awful recently in getting knocked out in one round by Adonis Stevenson.
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