Cleverly vs Bellew / Dawson / Shumenov / Hopkins / Sukhotsky ???

WBO light-heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly says he would consider a rematch against Tony Bellew.

The Welshman outpointed Bellew last October, although one judge scored the attritional, ill-tempered bout a draw.

Liverpudlian Bellew bounced back from that loss to Cleverly, the first of his career, to stop Danny McIntosh last weekend and retain his British title.

"He [Bellew] looked impressive and that's an option," said Cleverly, who also wants WBC champion Chad Dawson.

"It's not ideal. If he had a world title belt then that would help, we could have an unification fight.

"It's a fight I want anyway, because I want to put the record straight. I think the last fight was a good fight and I think a second one would be as well."

"Dawson now is the new WBC world champion which I'm not surprised with really, I thought he'd win the fight," Cleverly said.

"He's probably instated himself now as the number one in the light-heavyweight division, he's probably the man to beat now.

"The division is wide open really, we've got four major world champions now - myself, Chad Dawson, Tavoris Cloud and Beibut Shumenov.

"I think it is a fight that will happen in the future, but for the meantime we'll probably be looking at the WBA champion Beibut Shumenov.

"I think that fight can be made and we'll take it from there."

While Dawson and Shumenov are on the Cleverly radar, the unbeaten 25-year-old is eager to get back into action this summer after withdrawing from his last fight against Kosovan Robin Krasniqi because of illness .

"We'll just have to go through the names and see which one is keen to fight and go from there," Cleverly added.

"But there's options out there now, there's a lot of options available and we'll have to sit down, me and my promoter [Frank Warren] and discuss the best option.

"Hopkins is still a great name, I'm not sure whether that fight is still alive now.

"He's obviously going to have a break after this fight [against Dawson] and recuperate, so that will probably take a couple of months in itself before he gets back to business.

"We'll see what happens if he's still keen to fight on and continue fighting for a world title, then I'm sure that fight can still be made."

Russian Dmitry Sukhotsky remains the WBO's mandatory challenger and could also be a future opponent for Cleverly.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/wales/17898155

That's cleared that up then!

If his next fight is against any of those mentioned I will eat my trousers.

Union, stop picking on Cleverley. As the world champion, if he doesn't want to fight anyone that is world class or close to it, make lots of money fighting tin cans and then complain that everyone else is scared of him, then that's his prerogative.

If he takes on anyone of those names, then he deserves respect.

I think its a fairly balanced take on the division from Cleverly.

Id rule out Dawson as an opponents. He wont be interested enough and it would be hard to sort at this juncture.

Id rule out Cloud also as he seems to be looking elsewhere, possibly Pascal.

But I think Shumenov is a decent possibility and I wouldnt rule out Hopkins either. Think theres a very good chance Bellew might get a return match and then of course the mandatory guy aswell. But I would say theres a good chance he fights one of those four guys next.

The impression Im getting is that his fights thus far has just been to tread water and see what options become available. I dont think they want to fight high risk, low reward style fighters like Erdei or Campillo. If they are going to take a risk I think it will be with an established name like Hopkins or a unification fight like Shumenov which at least offers a decent return.

Id be quite happy if Cleverlys next 2 opponents were Bellew and Shumenov. I got a feeling he will have another WBO mandatory before fighting Shumenov though. Frank will try and build Cleverly v Shumenov into a Calzaghe v Kessler type Euro superfight

Superfight!? Give over.

Steffan wrote:Id be quite happy if Cleverlys next 2 opponents were Bellew and Shumenov. I got a feeling he will have another WBO mandatory before fighting Shumenov though. Frank will try and build Cleverly v Shumenov into a Calzaghe v Kessler type Euro superfight

Agreed, I think Bellew then Shumenov would be a good balance of level and challenge before moving on to bigger fish/higher risk fighters like Campillo and/or Erdei who I don't think Clev should be excused from fighting just because the risk-return profile isn't as tasty.

two_tone wrote:Superfight!? Give over.

I didnt say it was a Superfight. I said Frank will try and build it up as one. Its a unification fight none the less

Would enjoy Bellew and Clev again first fight was good entertainment. Bellew ma not get it quite as quickly as he hopes though reckon he should have a go for the Euro belt and cement his ranking a bit more to make it harder to ignore him.

Steffan wrote:Id be quite happy if Cleverlys next 2 opponents were Bellew and Shumenov. I got a feeling he will have another WBO mandatory before fighting Shumenov though. Frank will try and build Cleverly v Shumenov into a Calzaghe v Kessler type Euro superfight

Another WBO mandatory?? He hasn't had one yet haha.

You mean, he should fight his mandatory like was promised instead of hunting for the 83rd's of this world.

If he at least fights Sukhotski next it would be a step in the right direction. Anyone worse than that and he is a fraud like pre-lacy Joe.

Here we go again...

Ahhhh a good old fashioned Nathan Cleverly article doesn't half draw in the punters!

The problem with Cleverly is that his ambitious words do not match his unambitious actions and this is why I've lost faith in the trigonometry expert.

If he was a true world class boxer with a strap he'd be chomping at the bit to get it on with all of them as besides Dawson, none of those champions are truly world class.

Would love to see him get it on with Cloud and Shumenov and I believe (if he boxed to his strengths and didn't go at it like he's a Mike Tyson wannabe) he could beat both comfortably. Chad Dawson would be another matter altogether and a potential p4p superfight in two years time.

It's not going to happen though is it?

I'd agree with you but he hardly ever fights to his strengths at which point I think Cloud would stop him while Shumenov would be a close scrappy affair.