By Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn is saying that they were granted a license to have a boxing event on May 29 at Goodsion Park in Liverpool, UK. This is where Hearn wants to match his fighter #6 WBC Tony Bellew (26-2-1, 16 KOs) against unbeaten #1 WBC Ilunga Makubu (19-0, 18 KOs) for the vacant WBC cruiserweight title.
Bellew, 33, will have the hometown advantage over the hard hitting Makubu despite the fact that he’s ranked lower than him and doesn’t have the unbeaten record that the talented fighter has.
Goodison Park is still not a done deal yet, so it’s possible the fight could wind up somewhere else. However, it’ll probably be staged in the UK because Bellew is capable of bringing in a mess of fans if the fight takes place over there.
“We’ve been ticking boxes the last few weeks and clearance from the council was obviously a big hurdle to overcome,” said Hearn to skysports.com. “We are nearly there and hopefully next week; we can give the city some huge news.”
I don’t know if I would call it “huge news” about Bellew vs. Makubu taking place at Goodison Park. The way I see it, it probably doesn’t matter where the fight takes place. Bellew is in a mess of hurt against the powerful southpaw Makubu. I think Bellew was a good light heavyweight contender, but as a cruiserweight, he just looks flabby around his midsection, and quite ordinary.
Bellew has won six fights since moving up to the cruiserweight division two years ago in 2014, but he hasn’t faced anyone that you can call remotely good. Bellew’s best opponents since moving up to cruiserweight were Nathan Cleverly, a non-cruiserweight, fringe contender Mateusz Masternak and 39-year-old Valery Brudov.
Those are all mediocre fighters in my view, and I saw no one that was nearly good enough to put Bellew back in his place and send him skittering back down to 175, which is where he really should be at right now. I don’t think Bellew belongs at cruiserweight. Makubu is going to highlight that fact on May 29 when he gets Bellew in the ring and likely takes him apart piece by piece in the same way that Adonis Stevenson did two years ago in his 6th round knockout win.
Makubu has one-punch power. We saw that in his last fight in Makubu stopping a very, very good fighter in Thabiso Mchunu in the 11th round last May. I think Mchunu would badly school Bellew if given the chance to fight him, which I don’t think he ever will. I’m sure Hearn has sniffed around and noted how good Mchunu is and will make sure he keeps Bellew thousands of miles away from him. The fact that Makubu was able to stop Mchunu shows you how talented he is as a fighter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySEvFGs-woA
Makubu also knocked out Glen Johnson in nine rounds in 2014. That was only the second time in Johnson’s career that he’d ever been knocked out. I don’t think Bellew could stop Johnson. On the contrary, if there was going to be a knockout in a fight between those two, I would favor Johnson.
For some reason, Bellew is all excited about wanting to fight Goodison Park. I have no idea why it would matter. A ring is a ring. It shouldn’t matter. If it were me, I’d want to make sure the fight wasn’t at home, because if I didn’t think I had any chance of winning, I wouldn’t want to be fighting in front of my home fans. I mean, I don’t see Bellew being helped by his fans to beat a talent like Makubu.
If anything, Bellew’s fans might push him to fight harder and get knocked out sooner by Makubu. Bellew might get brave if he’s energized by his fans, and the last thing you want to do against Makubu is get brave, because he’ll take your head off with one of his big left uppercuts that he likes to throw.
I don’t see this fight going very well for Bellew. Heck, he just finished going life and death with Masternak last December in winning a very hard 12 round decision, and Masternak can’t punch. He’s not nearly the same fighter that Makubu is. Gosh, if Masternak were to fight Makubu, I think the fight would be over within a few rounds. As soon as Makubu catches Masternak with one of his big shots, it would be all over.
I think it’s going to be a bad night for Bellew on May 29. After messing about in the cruiserweight division for the last two years, Bellew is finally facing his first good opponent in Makubu, and I think we’re going to all find out what I already knew two years ago in Bellew not having the size, talent, chin or the power to be a major player in the division. The good news is that once Bellew is knocked out by Makubu, he can move back down to 175 and carry on with being a gatekeeper type of contender.
The bad news is that Bellew chewed up two years of his career fighting fodder at cruiserweight instead of fighting at light heavyweight, a weight class better designed for Bellew’s string bean type of body. At cruiserweight, Bellew just looks like a light heavyweight with an extra 20 pounds of flab around his waist. Bellew looks like he ate his way to the weight class rather than worked his way by putting on useful muscle.
If Bellew can do some sit-ups and some jogging, he might be able to trim off that flab that has settled around his midsection since he moved up to cruiserweight. He could then move back down to 175 and try and get a third fight against Cleverly if anyone is still interested in seeing the two guys fight anymore.
Cleverly isn’t a factor at light heavyweight, and I don’t think Bellew will be either once he moved back down in weight. But I don’t see him doing anything at cruiserweight other than getting knocked out quickly by Makubu on May 29.