By Scott Gilfoid: The older and some would say wiser BJ Flores says he’s going to be looking to knockout WBC cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew this Saturday night in their fight at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, England. Flores, 37, wants to set a fast pace right from the start and look to get the 33-year-old Bellew out of there quickly.
Flores is ranked low by the World Boxing Council at #14, but it doesn’t really matter because he’s facing a flawed champion in Tony Bellew, who is probably no better than #15 in terms of talent when you line up the best fighters in the division.
Bellow is one of the champions in the cruiserweight division, but he’s clearly not the overall #1 champion or even better than many of the contenders in the division. Bellew is just a guy that beat a fighter with an inflated ranking in Ilunga Makabu to pick up the vacant WBC title last May.
Flores said to skysports.com:
“I am going for a knockout. I don’t plan on going the distance and I don’t feel I need to go the distance. He can say whatever he wants and in the first round he’ll see the difference and see what I am talking about.”
Setting a fast pace is a smart way for Flores to beat Bellew, because he doesn’t look like he can handle fast pace fights. In the past, Bellew has looked skinny in terms of muscles, but flabby around the sides of his midsection. You have to wonder how hard Bellew is training in camp when he still has flab on his body. If Flores is able to push a pace that Bellew can’t sustain, we could see him wear him down quickly to get a KO in this fight. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if that’s what happens on Saturday night.
Bellew and his promoter Eddie Hearn have obviously selected the 37-year-old Flores to fight because they see vulnerability. They could have fought #1 WBC Mairis Briedis to get him out of the way, as he’s the mandatory challenger. The fact that they opted for Flores, who is ranked near the bottom of the WBC’s rankings suggests that they see weakness there. But like I said, Bellew is arguably no better than a #15 fighter himself, so we’re looking at a pretty even fight on Saturday night.
Flores has the boxing skills, the experience and the better overall talent than Bellew. Flores is the natural cruiserweight. His frame is made for the division. Bellew is just a pumped up light heavyweight. The two things Bellew has going for him in this fight is his punching power and the hometown advantage. The fight is taking place in Bellew’s home city in Liverpool, which means it could be very, very difficult for Flores to win a decision. Flores isn’t thinking about winning a decision. He’s already said that. He plans on taking the judges out of the equation by going out and knocking Bellew out well before the 12th round.
“It’s going to be a fast pace right from the get-go and I am in great shape,” Flores said. “I really feel October 15 is going to be my night.”
That would be mighty impressive if Flores can go out and defeat Bellew on Saturday night to become a world champion at age 37. I don’t know of too many boxing fans that believe that Flores can win a world title at this point in his career. If you look at how badly Flores was dominated in 2015 by Beibut Shumenov in his 12 round decision against him, it just does not look likely that Flores will be able to do the job to take Bellew’s title on Saturday night. But as I said before, Flores need to worry about beating the best fighter in the cruiserweight division. He’s not facing the best or even the second best. Bellew is a fringe contender level fighter too. He just happens to be the WBC champion by virtue of being matched against a fighter with an inflated ranking in Makabu last May.
I don’t think Bellew should have been fighting for the WBC title, because he was given the opportunity over a TON of arguably more talented contenders in the WBC’s rankings. Bellew was given the shot at the WBC over these highly talented contenders: Marco Huck, Krzystof Wlodarczyk, Dmitry Kudrashov, Dmytro Kucher and Mairis Briedis.
I think that’s just wrong that Bellew was given the nod to fight for a title instead of one of those guys. It just makes you wonder what the WBC was thinking when they gave the green light for Bellew to fight for their vacant WBC title rather than one of those talents. What’s interesting also is the WBC doesn’t even have the highly talented Murat Gassiev ranked in their top 15. It doesn’t make sense because Gassiev is a highly talented fighter with knockout power in either hand, and yet the WBC doesn’t have him ranked in their top 15. It’s sad.