In an absolute horrendous fight, Tony Bellew avenged his loss to Nathan Cleverly. The 31-year old fighter from Liverpool scored a twelve round split decision victory over the Welshman. The official scorecards were 116-112 and 115-113 for Bellew, while one judge shockingly scored the fight 115-114 for Cleverly. ThatBoxingVoice.com scored the fight 116-112 for Bellew.
From the first round on, Cleverly solely used his left jab. While the jab was fast and successful in the early parts of the fight, it quickly became slow and very inaccurate.
However, Bellew was unable to capitalize on his opponents weakness. He tried to slip Cleverly’s jab and land counter shots, but had a hard time landing any punches. Which made for a very poor fight. The final punch stats revealed that only 15% of the punches thrown landed.
Although there was very little action, Cleverly was completely gassed after the eight round. Unable to throw his jab to keep Bellew off him, the Welshman was walked into the ropes and was unable to get out of them.
Bellew bullied his opponent for the last four rounds, but while he had Cleverly pinned on the ropes, he was once again unable to land meaningful punches. Cleverly had nothing in return and therefore lost these last four rounds and in the eyes of two judges and ThaBoxingVoice.com the fight, which was dead even for the first eight rounds.
Both fighters talked about a third fight at the post fight interview. However, after the poor showing tonight, I highly doubt that there will be any demand for the rubbermatch. Instead we will likely see Bellew get a shot at one of the cruiserweight champions, in which he likely will be outclassed.
In the co-main even, George ‘Saint’ Groves scored a seventh round stoppage over Denis Douglin. The Londoner struggled badly in the first few rounds. At the post fight interview Groves blamed the fact that his American opponent was a southpaw.
Groves started having more success from the fourth round on, but still looked very sloppy. Eventually the 26-year old fighter landed a combination on both Douglin’s body and head, sending the American to the canvas. Douglin was able to get up, but when Groves immediately put on the pressure again, the referee waved off the fight.
After the fight, Groves told Sky Sports that he is not really interested in rematching James DeGale, who fought on the undercard tonight. Instead he wants to fight WBC super middleweight champion Anthony Dirrell.
On the undercard, Anthony Joshua made very quick work of Michael Sprott. The Olympic gold medalist knocked out the veteran within two minutes of the first round.
Joshua, who improved his record to 10-0, with 10 KOs, will return on January 31 at the O2 Arena in London. His opponent will likely be American Kevin Johnson, according to promotor Eddie Hearn.
