By Scott Gilfoid: Joe Calzaghe sees Tony Bellew (22-2-1, 14 KOs) tasting defeat for a second time when he faces former WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (28-1, 14 KOs) on November 22nd at the Echo Arena, in Liverpool, UK.
Calzaghe thinks the Bellew-Cleverly 2 fight will ultimately come down to Cleverly’s superior hand speed and conditioning. Like their first fight in 2011, Calzaghe sees the two fighters fighting each other to a standstill in the first half of the fight. But once the bout goes into the second half, Calzaghe thinks Cleverly will take over and wear Bellew out with his superior conditioning.
Calzaghe sees this fight as an important one for both fighters’ careers. Both guys were whipped badly the last time they fought a quality fighter, and neither of them have looked good since they moved up to the cruiserweight division. Cleverly has beaten Alejandro Emilio Vilori and Shawn Corbin; whereas Bellew has looked poor in defeating Julio Cesar Dos Santos and Valery Brudov.
“He [Cleverly] won the first fight even though he wasn’t at his best,” Calzaghe said via Skysports.com. This is make-or-break for both fighters so there’s tremendous pressure on both. It’s all about speed – speed kills. Nathan needs to use his speed and his work rate and his boxing skill. If he does what he should do, he wins the fight.”
In fairness to Bellew, Cleverly isn’t that much faster than him so it’s hard to understand what Calzaghe is talking about when he talks about how speed kills. Cleverly isn’t fast, and he’s more of a robotic type of a fighter.
In terms of this being a make or break fight for both guys, I don’t agree. I mean, the winner of the Bellew-Cleverly 2 fight is going to be just as much out of his element when he fights for a cruiserweight title than Bellew and Cleverly were when they stepped it up last year and were whipped by the likes of Adonis Stevenson and Sergey Kovalev. Basically, I see the winner of the Bellew vs. Cleverly 2 fight as picking out a victim for one of the cruiserweight champions.
“It’s a 12-round fight and Nathan has the fitness and the speed. Use that speed and movement,” Calzaghe said. “I think in the second half of the fight, he [Cleverly] will push him back. I think Nathan wins on points or late stoppage.”
I agree that Cleverly will likely outwork Bellew late in the fight to win the decision. Bellew will gas out if he fails to score a knockout in this fight. But with that said, Cleverly is going to be way out of his league when/if he faces one of the cruiserweight champions like Marco Huck, Denis Lebedev or Grigory Drozd. Those guys are several levels better than the guys that Cleverly and Bellew have been facing since they moved up to the cruiserweight division.
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