Lebedev beats him quite easily and badly. Bellew looks good against limited guys he can out box. Lebedev is a better boxer than Bellew, especially at CW were Bellew looks more flat fooded than his LHW days. Lebedev also hits hard and Bellew isn't the most resilient against the big hitters. I really can see Bellew getting embarrassed at his football teams stadium like Kevin Mitchell did against Katsidis. Without a stacked card or a bigger home fighter fighting as a joint headliner, would Bellew v Lebedev even sell out Goodison?
Doubtful. Capacity is 40k. Bellew sold out Echo Arena (12k) in the Cleverly rematch but that's quite a jump. Lebedev hasn't fought in the UK since 2009 (when he demolished Macca) so casuals likely won't have a clue about him.
It'll be just like when Kovalev destroyed Cleverly. All the Brits will be gobsmacked when they see ol' scouse face laying in a heap.
I agree. Bellew - Cleverley II had a massive build up to it because of the bad blood between them and Hearn choosing to put it on PPV so he had to really ramp up advertising the fight. Cleverley is also known a bit to the casuals so that helped, but no one outside of hardcore boxing fans know Lebedev. I have a couple of mates who aren't hardcore fans, but are more than casual fans and they don't even know Lebedev.