Watch: David Haye – Tony Bellew Trade Insults – Video

By Boxing News - 11/25/2016 - Comments

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By Scott Gilfoid: Tony Bellew will be moving up in weight to fight heavyweight contender David Haye in a dreadful mismatch on March 4 at the O2 Arena in London, England. Believe it or not, this horrible Haye vs. Bellew match-up will be televised on Sky Box Office pay-per-view for the British fans to pay to see it.

The 33-year-old Bellew hasn’t even proven that he’s the 10th best fighter in the cruiserweight division, and now he’s moving up to heavyweight to fight the 36-year-old Haye (26-2, 24 KOs). I see Bellew lasting all of two rounds against Haye before he’s put out of his misery. Bellew doesn’t belong in the same ring with Haye, and it’s going to be painfully obvious from the instead the fight starts in round one.

They might as well call the Haye-Bellew fight an exhibition match, because that’s pretty much what I see it. The fight is like an old-time exhibition match. All they need is head gear and large 16oz gloves to get at it in the ring, because the Haye vs. Bellew contest has zero meaning in the big scheme of things.

Bellew (28-2-1, 18 KOs) has been flapping his gums about wanting to fight Haye ever since he won the vacant World Boxing Council cruiserweight title earlier this year in beating Ilunga Makabu by a 3rd round knockout. Bellew’s promoter Eddie Hearn steered him around his dangerous #1 WBC mandatory challenger Mairis Briedis (21-0, 18 KOs), and instead matched him against bottom fringe contender #14 WBC BJ Flores in his first defense of his WBC title last October.

Bellew stopped the 37-year-old Flores in the 3rd round at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, England. Flores had done nothing to earn the title shot other than lose to Beibut Shumenov last year in a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision. I guess that made Flores look like a good option for Bellew. Was this soft match-making for Bellew? I’d say that’s a big YES, but it kept Bellew as the champion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7dhTvlFc1A

If Hearn had matched Bellew against his #1 mandatory challenger Briedis, he likely would have been dethroned and send skittering back down to the contender ranks at cruiserweight. That would have pretty much taken all the air out of a potential Bellew vs. Haye fight as far as a viable pay-per-view fight in the UK market.

There’s no word about who will be fighting on the undercard of the Haye vs. Bellew fight on March 4. I guess it doesn’t matter. The boxing fans will purchase the card – or not – purchase the card based on their decision whether the main event is worthwhile to see. Frankly, I wouldn’t pay a penny on the card. It’s terrible fight. If they’re going to pick anyone from the cruiserweight division to stick in the ring with Haye at heavyweight, then they should match him against the likes of Oleksandr Usyk, Murat Gassiev, Marco Huck or Krzysztof Glowacki. I rate those guys as MUCH better than Bellew at cruiserweight. If Haye is going to fight a cruiserweight, then he at least should be fighting the best rather than what I and many boxing fans feel is a paper champion in Bellew.

This isn’t even a fair fight in putting Bellew in with Haye. It’s not even sporting in my opinion. It’s like sticking a half-stunned fighter and shoving him into the ring with Haye and waiting for the obliteration to occur. I could excuse a mismatch like Haye-Bellew if Bellew had actually proven himself at cruiserweight by beating someone actually good first.

I mean, I don’t consider Bellew’s wins over BJ Flores and Illunga Makabu as being victories over quality opposition. Now if Bellew had beaten Usyk, Glowacki, Huck, Denis Lebedev, Gassiev and Briedis, then we’re talking about some impressive wins here. I would be the first to say that Bellew should walk the plank and take the fight with Haye if he had beaten those guys, but the fact of the matter is, he hasn’t beaten those guys.

Bellew beat two easy marks in Makabu and Flores. Bellew then started jabbering about him being the best fighter in the cruiserweight division after beating those guys. I guess that plays well with the casual boxing fans, who have no idea who Flores and Makabu are. They probably saw Bellew’s knockout wins over those guys and said, ‘Oh look, Bellew just beat the best the cruiserweight division has to offer. Where can I purchase tickets for his fight against Haye?’ The casual fans probably don’t have a clue that Bellew beat two easy options in his wins over Flores and Makabu. If Bellew had been in the ring with Usyk, Glowacki, Gassiev or Breidis, we probably wouldn’t be talking about a Haye-Bellew fight right now, because I think those fights would have been a disaster for Bellew.

Bellew’s promoter Eddie Hearn had this to say on his Twitter about the Haye vs. Bellew fight on March 4:

Rumble baby Rumble! David Haye v Tony Bellew is on!!! At the O2, March 4th 2017.”
Haye said this about Bellew in an interview with skysports.com:

“The country is fed up of his constant yapping,” said Haye. “Even in his home town of Liverpool, I would be stopped in the street by people begging me to spectacularly send him into retirement. Bellew is completely delusional if he thinks he can beat me. He still thinks he’s on the set of Creed and there will be some kind of Rocky-style happy ending. But come March 4 at The O2 in London I will bring reality crashing down on him.”

The sad thing is Bellew’s WBC cruiserweight title is going to be frozen while he moves up to heavyweight to fight Haye. From my understand, Bellew will be able to keep his WBC title even if he gets blasted into outer space by Haye on March 4. Yeah, it’s unbeatable and so, so sad. Oh my, Bellew gets to keep his WBC strap even after Haye smashes him into oblivion. In the meantime, Bellew’s #1 WBC mandatory Briedis has to sit and wait for Bellew to give him his title shot.

Bellew was recently yakking about IBO cruiserweight Marco Huck about his successful title defense against Dmytro Kucher on November 19. Bellew said this on his Twitter about Huck: “Huck walking round with that belt like it means something! Decent scrap against Kucher, but captain Huck? More like captain Birdseye.”

The fact that Bellew is even bothering to talk about Huck’s win over Kucher gives me the impression that Huck will be next in line for Bellew after he faces Haye. With Huck being the IBO cruiserweight champion, I see Hearn using that as a rationale to steer Bellew around his #1 WBC mandatory challenger Breidis by saying to the WBC that he’s taking a unification match. Quite often the sanctioning bodies will allow champions to steer around their mandatory challengers when they take on other champions in unification fights.

YouTube video

I think that’s the next move for Bellew after the Haye fight. He won’t face Breidis, even though he was already supposed to face him in his first defense of his WBC title. The IBO title isn’t seen as a major belt by a lot of boxing fans, but I my guess is the WBC will let Bellew take on Huck rather than push him to fight Breidis after the Haye fight. To me, it’s so utterly predictable in seeing the next move Bellew takes.

“I’ve backed him into a corner, left him nowhere to go, and now I have what I want,” said Bellew via skysports.com. “I’m not under any illusions, I know exactly what I am going up against, it’s big risk, big reward.”