Cleverly to face Uzelkov as Ward and Dawson face off
Welsh WBO light heavy-weight champion Nathan Cleverly has announced that his fourth title defence will be against Ukrainian Vyacheslav Uzelkov.
The fight is set for 27th October at Cardiff’s Motorpoint arena as Cleverly looks to extend his reign as world champion.
It is disappointing to see him fighting yet another unheard of fighter, however. Matches with Bernard Hopkins, Carl Froch and Tony Bellew were touted but fell through, with Cleverly’s promoter Frank Warren claiming the latter two “didn’t want to know”.
The more likely truth is much sadder; it seems that Warren does not want to risk his long-term investment by seeing the possibility of a Cleverly loss occur, blotting his perfect record thus far.
The good news is that there are only so many fights that can be taken before Cleverly will have to one: prove what he’s made of, and two: go overseas and fight away from home.
Ward and Dawson come to head in underrated mega-fight
Meanwhile, Andre Ward and Chad Dawson are set and ready for battle as they go to war in the early hours of Sunday morning for Ward’s WBA and WBC super middle-weight.
This fight has not gotten anything like the exposure it should have done, which is a surprise as Sky are covering the fight and undercard.
Andre Ward proved his class during the Super Six tournament, climaxing by dismantling Carl Froch in the final and is also undefeated.
Dawson also showed skill to take down Bernard Hopkins after a controversial first fight, and as he is coming down from light heavy-weight, he will be the naturally bigger man.
The winner of this fight is a very real pretender to Floyd Mayweather’s pound-for-pound crown, along with winners of the Chavez versus Martinez and Saul Alvarez’ next fight.
In other news
The storied career of Ryan Rhodes has finally come to an end with the Sheffield man closing the book on a story that saw him become Britain’s youngest ever national title holder at 20.
Gennady Golovkin defeated Grzegorz Proksa to retain his WBA and IBO middle-weight titles with an impressive fifth round knock-out. Golovkin is undefeated and is now being touted to face the winner of the Chavez versus Martinez clash.
Tony Bellew and Edison Miranda come to a head in London on Saturday night in what should be a thoroughly entertaining bout as both fighters possess big power.
Adam Appleton, boxing correspondent
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