By Scott Gilfoid: Tony Bellew (21-2-1, 13 KO’s) expects to put former WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (27-1, 13 KO’s) out of his misery when/if they face each other in October or November of this year. Bellew believes that with his new power at cruiserweight, he’ll send Cleverly off into a permanent retirement by giving him a furious beating that he won’t soon forget. But before Bellew and Cleverly can face each other again, they have to win their next fights against the guys that their promoter Eddie Hearn dug up for them.
Bellew will be fighting Julio Cesar Dos Santos (26-2. 23 KO’s) on July 12th at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, UK, while Cleverly faces Alejandro Emilio Valori (15-4, 11 KO’s) on the same card. Bellew and Cleverly should be able to win these fights in order to meet up later on this year, but nothing is a given with either of them due to them both having been knocked out.
Bellew can dish it out, but he has problems taking punishment in return. And Cleverly doesn’t have the punching power to be fighting in the cruiserweight division, and he’s going to likely be exposed one of these days when Hearn eventually tries matching him against another good fighter.
“I’m definitely more powerful [at cruiserweight],” Bellew said. “No ones put [Valery] Brudov off his feet like I did.”
Bellew has been talking constantly about his 12th round knockout win over Brudov since last March, and it seems that he’s not getting tired of it. Brudov is a 37-year-old light heavyweight who was brought in for Bellew’s first fight at cruiserweight last March. It was supposed to have been an easy victory for Bellew, as Brudov was trounced by Ola Afolabi in 5 easy rounds in 2012, but instead of it being an easy fight for Bellew, he ended up almost getting knocked out by him in the fight.
To his credit, Bellew was able to come on and score a late stoppage after Brudov ran out of gas in the 9th, but it was definitely not a good sign that Bellew was on the verge of being knocked out by a guy who is nowhere near as good as the top cruiserweights in the division.
Speaking about Cleverly, Bellew said “He’ll never box again after fighting me. I don’t retire him, then I’ve failed. I don’t want to ever see him fight again after me.”
I could understand Bellew yapping about his punching power if he actually had some, but his power is nothing special in the cruiserweight division. Guys like Afolabi, Denis Lebedev, Rakhim Chakhkiev, Marco Huck, Thabiso Mchunu, Ilunga Makabu, Krzysztof Wlodarczyk, Santander Silgado and Victor Ramirez are all bigger punchers than Bellew.
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