Tony Bellew to fight Valery Brudov on March 15th in cruiserweight debut

By Boxing News - 01/21/2014 - Comments

stevenson54By Scott Gilfoid: Tony Bellew (20-2-1., 12 KO’s) will be making his cruiserweight debut on March 15th against 37-year-old 2nd tier light heavyweight Valery Brudov (41-4, 28 KO’s) at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, UK. Why Bellew is fighting a light heavyweight when he’s supposed to be making his cruiserweight debut is the big question.

I guess you have to ask Bellew’s promoter Eddie Hearn, because it doesn’t make any sense at all to me. When you see a fighter being moved up in weight, it’s so incredibly strange to see them still fighting guys from their previous weight class when technically they’re supposed to be moving up. Oh well, eventually Bellew will have to fight an actual cruiserweight, and I suspect he’ll have problems once he’s matched semi-touch.

Bellew was annihilated in 6 rounds in his last fight against WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson last November in Quebec. Bellew had been talking himself up for weeks in bragging how he was going to expose Stevenson as being a little man, but once he got in the ring with him, Stevenson batted Bellew around the ring like a skinny pinata and it had to have been a humbling experience for the British fighter. The disappointing thing is that after getting trounced by Stevenson, Bellew abandoned the 175 lb. division and decided to move up in weight to the cruiserweight division, as if weight was the problem for him getting stomped by Stevenson rather than talent.

I think Bellew is making a huge mistake in moving up in weight, and this move reeks of a poorly thought out decision. Bellow will obviously do well while Hearn is matching him up against fodder opposition like Brudov, but once he’s put in with quality, my guess is we’ll see Bellew pounded into the canvas. There’s a lot of good cruiserweight contenders with power equal to that of Stevenson, and if Bellew couldn’t handle his power before, I don’t expect things to be any different with him fighting at cruiserweight.

Brudov, 37, was stopped in the 5th round by Ola Afolabi in March of 2012. That was the last time that Brudov fought a decent opponent. In his last two fights, Brudov has beaten Sergey Gorokhov (1-1) and Jevgenijs Andrejevs (7-54, 1 KO’s). Those guys got pretty good records, don’t they? In 2010, Brudov was stopped in the 11th round by Guillermo Jones. In 2007, Brudov was beaten by Firat Arslan by a 12 round split decision. In 2006, Brudov was beaten by Virgil Hill.

In looking at Brudov’s resume, he’s never beaten anyone good, and he’s lost against the only good 4 fighters he’s faced during his 15-year pro career. It’s kind of sad that Brudov has only faced 4 good opponents during his career, but it goes like that sometimes. Look at Bellew; he’s only fought one good opponent during his career and he got totally thrashed.



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