Tavoris Cloud

On August 8, 2008, at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, Cloud defeated former WBO Light Heavyweight Champion Julio César González by technical knockout in the tenth round in an IBF Light Heavyweight title eliminator. Cloud set the tempo of the fight early, hurting Gonzalez with a right cross in dominating the first round. It was more of the same in the next two rounds, although Gonzalez made the third round the most competitive. He kept the fight in the middle of the ring, but Cloud kept sending him back with uppercuts and left hooks. With González taking a beating for the majority of the fight, in round ten, the referee stopped the fight after Cloud landed a right hand.

Tavoris won the IBF Light Heavyweight title against the durable Clinton Woods by way of a 12-round unanimous decision after former champion Chad Dawson vacated the belt (it is argued in the boxing community that Chad Dawson vacated the IBF belt to avoid Tavoris Cloud, whom he represented the country with during his amateur career. However, this argument can not be concluded as fact). The fight against Clinton Woods took place on August 28, 2009. Cloud threw well over 1000 punches in the fight which is well over the average for that weight division and won the fight by unanimous decision after 12 rounds.

Cloud defeated Glen Johnson by unanimous decision on August 7, 2010.

Cloud later took on Bernard Hopkins on March 9, 2013 at the Barclays center in Brooklyn and lost his IBF Championship via Unanimous Decision (UD).

On September 27, 2014, Cloud faced Dagestan contender Artur Beterbiev. Right from the start Cloud was outmatched and unable to cope with the power of his vastly larger foe, getting dropped three times in the first round before finally being for the last time early in the second. Cloud was unable to beat referee Michael Griffin's count, making this his third consecutive loss.