WBA light-heavyweight champion Beibut Shumenov wants a showdown with Nathan Cleverly. The Welshman was installed as WBO king two weeks ago, and made a successful defence of his title at the O2 Arena. And now he's attracted interest from Shumenov, who wants the 24-year-old to travel to the States to face him. "The question is would Cleverly consider fighting me in United States?" the US-based Khazakstani told the BBC. "I wouldn't offer advice to Cleverly about anything because he is his own man. However, as I mentioned earlier, the question is would Cleverly come to the US to fight. "I would love to see a tournament with the four world champions fighting each other. Like I said, I've always wanted to unify the titles. "I don't know if [Cleverly] is ready. You would have to ask him but my goal has always been to unify the 175lbs titles. I tried to make it happen and will continue to do so."
His "win" against Campillo was one of the worst robberies of last year. Shumenov hits hard, though. It'd be interesting to see if Cleverly would be smart and disciplined enough to outbox him. If Cleverly hangs his chin out as usual, we could get a highlight reel KO.
Well if Matchroom go the way they`re going ****** might have no choice but to match his boxers at top level otherwise he`s going to lose more credibility
I think Cleverly would beat him but expect to see a few very soft defences in his first year as "champion". Apart from Calzaghe vs Kessler when has Allegedly ever made a unification fight?
****** really does frustrate me sometimes. He does really clever jobs of getting his fighters world titles, and has a great track record at this. But once the belt is theirs, it's all about fighting fringe contenders and safe challengers. Burns, as mentioned above, is a good example of this - he's fought nobody of Martinez's level since winning the belt and I think has lost momentum because of it. I want to see Cleverly fighting top names - he has the tools to become a major name but wont be until he fights some top level opponents. ****** has been talking about a Bernard Hopkins fight, which is encouraging but won't happen yet as Hopkins will go for Chad Dawson first. This Shumenov fight would be a great step forward against what I hear is a reasonably limited opponent - 2 titles in 2 fights would be electric. Expect to see Bellew vs Cleverly first though...
Rabbit ****** would be crazy to let Cleverly fight Shuemenov in the states. Campillo was the victim of one the worst robberies I've ever seen (It was worse than Reid-Ottke or Alexander-Kotelnik imo). The second half of that fight resembled Calzaghe-Lacy only Lacy gets the decision.
I genuinley believe Cleverly when he says he wants to fight the best in the division, asap. I think he'll walk away from 'Talk to Frank' if he insits on giving him easy title defences, stalling his progress.