Bivol's Manager: Cleverly Has To Fight Us, But May Go Elsewhere

By Luke Furman

As BoxingScene.com previously reported, the World Boxing Association (WBA) Championship Committee ordered WBA "regular" light heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly to make a mandatory defense against the WBA interim-light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol - to establish a mandatory challenger to WBA "super" champion Andre Ward.

Cleverly defeated Juergen Braehmer last October to capture the "regular" belt. According to rule 11, a champion has 120 days to perform a mandatory match and this term has already expired for the Welsh fighter.

For his part, Bivol won the interim title in May 2016, after winning by unanimous decision over Felix Valera and he's already defended his belt twice with impressive victories. The fight has be made by August 27th or a purse bid will be ordered.

According to Vadim Kornilov, he is unsure if Cleverly will actually agree to go forward with the contest.

There are rumors that Cleverly will defend his belt against Badou Jack on the Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor undercard on August 26th. And there are also rumors that Cleverly is under consideration to fight Ward for the WBA 'super' title in the fall.

"Cleverly has not yet agreed. Now that the order has come down, he is obligated to fight with Bivol, and it's not known what will happen next with Cleverly. There are several options - he can officially fight for the WBA (Super), he can leave the title vacant and then Bivol will fight for this title with someone from the top 15 of the WBA," Kornilov told Vasily Konov.

"Therefore, it is only clear that the WBA has finally issued the order that Bivol is the mandatory challenger. Regarding Bivol, his next fight is planned to take place in November, most likely in the United States or perhaps in Europe. The negotiations with Cleverly went ahead because of the order, so within a week or two I think everything will be clear."

Bivol's last fight took place on June 18 in Las Vegas as part of the undercard to Sergey Kovalev's rematch with Andre Ward. Bivol demolished Cedric Agnew by technical knockout in the fourth round.

For the 26-year-old Russian, this victory was the eleventh of his career and his ninth knockout. As far as the 30-year-old Cleverly, he has a record of 30 wins (16 by knockout) and 3 losses.

Luke Furman covers boxing for bokser.org.