By Scott Gilfoid: #14 WBO Tony Bellew (18-1, 12 KO’s) will be trying not to get knocked out of the 1st tier on Saturday night against #5 WBC, #10 IBF, #10 WBA Roberto Bolonti (30-1, 19 KO’s) in their fight for the vacant WBC Silver light heavyweight title in Nottingham, UK. The fight will take place at the Nottingham Arena on the undercard of the Carl Froch vs. Yusaf Mack fight, and there should be at least 9000 fans in the arena. That’s a lot of fans for these two match-ups because neither of them are all that appealing to be honest.

A Froch-Mack & Bellew-Bolonti wouldn’t likely draw many boxing fans if this fight card were staged in the United States because the card lacks talented fighters with big names. On paper it’s just a couple of mismatches and the British fans have gladly purchased tickets to see the fight live. Hopefully the fights are more competitive than what they appear to be on paper.

Bolonti is one of those fighters with a high ranking despite never having fought anyone really good. He’s fought largely in Argentina against little known opposition. In looking at some of his fights he looks slow, small and not all that powerful. I mean, he’s got a lot of knockouts but they’ve mostly come against weak opposition.

Bellew will probably beat this guy because he’s a step down from Bellew’s last opponent Edison Miranda. I know that doesn’t make sense because Bolonti has impressive won-lost record. However, those victories have come against a lot of poor opposition. In contrast, Miranda has been in with a lot of good world class opposition.

The winner of this fight could find himself close to getting a title shot against WBC light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson. That’s not really good thing because neither Bellew or Bolonti match-up with Dawson and the only thing they’ll get from the fight is a payday because Dawson is on another level.

Bellew beat Miranda by 9th round TKO last September. Bellew fought cautiously and waited until Miranda gassed out in order to go after him. Still, Bellew didn’t look good in that fight and showed a lot of weaknesses. Last year, Bellew lost to WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly by a 12 round majority decision.