By Nick Kelly

Nathan Cleverly’s European light heavyweight title bout against Italian Antonio Brancalion will now be held in Liverpool on March 12th according to our sources.  The bout will feature on the bill at the ECHO Arena, headed by Paul Smith’s first defence of his Lonsdale belt against Tony Dodson.

OPI 2000 won the purse bids and originally intended to stage the bout in Italy but recently attempted to sell the bout to Hatton Promotions who would have brought it to the UK.  Because OPI couldn’t stage the contest the second highest bidder, Frank Warren, will now take responsibility.

Following Khan’s departure to Golden Boy and Juergen Braehmer’s sixteen-month prison sentence, Warren has admitted that he is keen to push Cleverly into a shot at the WBO light heavyweight title before the end of the year.  Although Cleverly is currently ranked number four, with Hopkins at one, Karo Murat at two and Vyacheslav Uzelkov at three, the Welshman should climb the rankings if he defeats Brancalion.