By Bill Phanco: Former two division world champion Bernard Hopkins (52-6-2, 32 KO’s) will be fighting on March 9th at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The possible opponent will be picked from one of these fighters: Nathan Cleverly, Beibut Shumenov and Tavoris Cloud.
It’s safe to say that Cleverly won’t be the one getting the fight because he has a mandatory title defense coming up against his mandatory challenger Robin Krasniqi in February, and he’s got to take that fight if he doesn’t want to risk getting stripped by the World Boxing Organization for failure to defend against his mandatory.
Hopkins will be turning 48 in January, and that’s pretty old for a fighter still looking to compete at the world class level. Hopkins looked like he’d lost something from his last two fights with Chad Dawson. He was beaten by Dawson last April by a 12 round majority decision, and before that Hopkins had fought to a 2nd round no contest with him in October last year.
By Michael Collins: IBF super middleweight champion Carl Froch (29-2, 21 KO’s) and his promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport have reportedly turned down a huge £1million offer from Frank Warren for Froch to step up and fight WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (24-0, 11 KO’s) in a catchweight fight. Instead of taking that big payday for his fighter Froch and thrilled British boxing fans, Hearn has instead matched Froch up against American Yusaf Mack (31-4-2, 17 KO’s) in a fight that will take place on November 17th at the Capital FM Arena, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, UK.
By Marcus Richardson: WBO light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly (24-0, 11 KO’s) is having to settle for a fight against #9 WBO Vyacheslav Uzelkov (27-2, 16 KO’s) on October 27th instead of much bigger fights against Carl Froch, Bernard Hopkins, Tony Bellew and Beibut Shumenov. Cleverly’s promoter Frank Warren attempted to line up a fight between Cleverly and each of those fighters but they either showed no interest in facing him or they backed out.