By Scott Gilfoid: WBC cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew (27-2-1, 17 KOs) is negotiating a fight against former two division world champion David Haye (28-2, 26-KOs) for a fight that will likely be taking place late this year if/when Haye gets past 44-year-old Shannon Briggs in September.
Haye is supposed to win the fight against Briggs, but you never know. Haye is one of those guys that you can’t really predict what he’s going to do because he’s failed to produce in the past on big occasions, and he’s got a really padded record. I personally only see three quality fighters on Haye’s entire resume and he arguably lost to all three of them in Wladimir Klitschko, Carl Thompson and Nikolay Valuev.
The rest of the guys that Haye has fought have been beatable fighters without a great deal of talent.
Bellew defeated Ilunga Makabu (19-2, 18 KOs) by a 3rd round knockout on May 29 last month to win the vacant WBC cruiserweight title at Goodison Park in Liverpool, England.
That victory for Bellew was clearly the high point in his career because he wasn’t supposed to win the fight. It was a case of Makabu fighting down to his competition rather than staying at his own level.
Makabu made a mistake by choosing to fight against the ropes in round three. This allowed Bellow to tee of him until he knocked him out. Bellew then proudly pronounced himself the belt fighter in the cruiserweight division. Never mind the fact that Bellew still hasn’t faced the real cream of the division in Olesandr Usyk, Krzystof Glowacki, Denis Lebedev, Grigory Drozd, Mairis Briedis, Beibut Shumenov, Yunier Dordicos, and Murat Gassiev. Bellew still feels he’s the best fighter in the cruiserweight division despite not having faced any of those talents. Do I think Bellew could beat all of those fighters? Nope. I think he might be able to beat maybe one of them. Perhaps he could possibly beat Dordicos on a good night. But someone like Gassiev with one punch power, I think Bellew would be out cold by the 2nd round. Glowacki would be absolute nightmare for Bellew. I think Glowacki would destroy Bellew even if they had the fight at Goodison Park in Liverpool. I would hope for Bellew’s sake that he wouldn’t be crazy enough to fight Glowacki in Liverpool because I think that’s a fight that would be a guaranteed loss for Bellew.
“We are in talks. The two of us are speaking at the moment and we’ll see where it goes but I want to fight the ‘Haye-faker’,” Bellew said to skysports.com about Haye. “It’s ‘Haye-faker’ because he’s pulled out of that many fights over the last few years. He ran scared – absolutely petrified from Tyson Fury – not once, but twice. He then actually goes on to fight clowns to be honest. Mark De Mori and the other guy Lurch (Arnold Gjergjaj) – it was just ridiculous the last two opponents he’s had.”
Bellew, 33, kind of has to look for the Haye fight now because if he doesn’t fight Haye, he could wind up having to defend his WBC cruiserweight title against either Grgory Drozd or Mairis Briedis. Bellew will need to fight one of those guys if he wants to hold onto his WBC title.
It’s possible that the World Boxing Council will let Bellew take a unification fight against IBF/WBA champion Denis Lebedev an keep his title that way. I’d be surprised if the WBC doesn’t strip Bellew of his WBC belt if he gets beaten by Haye. It would be a weird situation for Bellew to start fighting in other divisions, losing to various fighters, and then still being able to keep his WBC cruiserweight title. That would be really strange, and I don’t think the WBC would put up with it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw2l9Qm1qC4
Haye wants to fight IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua. I think it’s a bad idea for Haye to be wasting his time fighting cruiserweights like Bellew if he wants to fight Joshua. Haye is taking the wrong approach to getting the Joshua fight by failing to face quality fighters. Since Haye started his comeback earlier this year, he’s beaten Mark De Mori and Arnold Gjergjaj. Both of those fighters looked dreadful. Now Haye is about to fight 44-year-old Shannon Briggs. That’s another less than spectacular opponent for Haye. if he were to follow that fight up with a match against Bellew, I think it would be wretched.