Bellew, Chilemba Fight To Draw In Liverpool WBA Eliminator

Draws were the order of the day last evening at Liverpool’s Echo Arena as favorite sons Tony Bellew and Derry Mathews had their homecomings spoiled by performances from Isaac Chilemba and Anthony Crolla.

Bellew and Chilemba were tangling for a very high profile prize, with a mandatory title challenge going to the winner of a WBC light heavyweight final eliminator.

The early rounds featured an intent Bellew stalking a very defensive and hard to hit Chilemba. “The Bomber” swept most of the early rounds on sheer activity alone as he didn’t land often but Chilemba threw very little in return, mostly jabs and the odd right hand counter.

The sixth round saw Chilemba finally listen to his trainer Buddy McGirt, backing up Bellew and completely taking control of the bout. The local man looked lost in that frame, getting punched by the suddenly aggressive visitor while missing, often wildly, with his own efforts.

But this approach was opposite Chilemba’s counter-puncher nature and while the South African resident did enough to win most of the rounds in the second half of the fight, his sporadic approach to what was working gave Bellew the opportunity to remain in the fight.

It was a very close bout, many rounds could have gone either way but Chilemba’s inactivity in the early rounds seemed to tilt a result in Bellew’s favor.

One judge agreed to that viewpoint, awarding Bellew a 116-115 ruling, while another gave Chilemba a rather wide margin of 116-112 and a third came in at 114-114, resulting in a draw.

As a result of the standstill result, Bellew’s record goes to 19-1-1 (12), Chilemba stands at 20-1-2 (9), and the top spot in the WBC rankings remains vacant.

Expect a rematch.

The undercard saw lightweights Derry Mathews, 32-8-2 (17), and Anthony Crolla, 25-4-1 (9), reprising their epic clash of one year ago that saw Mathews come from behind to gun down Crolla with a smashing uppercut.

This time Crolla was much more reserved and skillful, avoiding the trenches and taking an early lead behind a sharp jab and punching when Mathews would cover up.

Crolla’s high guard picked off much of Mathews’ early efforts but the middle rounds saw the Mancunian tire and that allowed Mathews to land some hard punches and get back in the bout.

When Mathews began to flag in the later frames, Crolla resumed picking the local man apart, ripping in hurtful body shots and pinpoint jabs, some of which snapped back the head of Mathews.

But Mathews never stopped swinging and was competitive until the 12 rounds were completed. When the scores were read, not many in attendance were shocked by the draw verdict, with each man getting a 115-113 result on the cards while the third score read 114-114.

Definitely expect a rematch.

In other action on the bill, defense was largely throw to the wayside in a tear up between super middleweights Rocky Fielding, 13-0 (7), and Wayne Reed, 10-6 (5).

The more-skilled Fielding defended his English belt by dropping the big-hearted Reed once in the fourth and twice in the sixth enroute to producing a stoppage at 1:19 of the sixth.

Another English belt was at stake in a bout for the vacant super bantam strap between undefeated prospects Jon Fernandez, 10-1 (2), and Jazza Dickens, 14-0 (5).

Dickens almost pulled off an early evening after dropping Fernandes in the first but the local man couldn’t put away the Southampton scrapper.

The contest went all 10 rounds and was very awkward most of the time, a clash between the conventional style of Fernandes and the hands-down, punches from every angle approach of Dickens.

In the end, Dickens was awarded the decision 91-99 twice and 99-92.