By Scott Gilfoid: David Haye says he felt threatened by Tony Bellew after he shoved him during their face-off at today’s press conference to promote their March 4 fight. Out of instinct, Haye says he reacted after Bellew shoved him suddenly really hard when the two of them were in a face-off.
It’s unclear why Bellew pushed Haye. The two didn’t appear to be having words with one another. They were just face to face when Bellew gave Haye a hard shove. It looked as if Haye’s left hand connected to the jaw of Bellew while he was on his way backwards.
It looked like a nothing punch. I guess it doesn’t matter, because Bellew was furious about it, and talking a mile a minute. I still don’t know why the 33-year-olld Bellew was so upset. It’s not as if he didn’t initiate things by shoving Haye. If Bellew doesn’t want to be belted in the future by Haye or by any of his opponents, then he needs to not shove them during the face-offs. Fighters react on instinct. In Haye’s case, his left hand might have had a mind of it’s own in taking off the moment that he was shoved. I wonder if Haye was even thinking at all. It’s so instinctual with these fighters. Bellew found out the hard way today that shoving an opponent isn’t a good idea.
Haye said to skysports.com about his physical altercation with Bellew:
“If he thinks that’s a punch, he’s got another thing coming,” Haye said. “All I remember is he pushed me and I pushed him back. t’s unnecessary. I never initiate things unless I feel threatened. I didn’t really feel threatened today, but once he put his hands on me I sort of struck back a little bit.”
So there it is. Haye says he sort of struck back at Bellew once he put his hands on him. It was pretty simple really.
Bellew and Haye should probably be kept apart for the sake of their scheduled March 4 fight. The last thing the boxing fans need is for the fight to be postponed due to one of them, possibly Bellew, getting hurt from another physical altercation between them. Bellew’s promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport should have seen this coming, and he should have prepared for it by not letting Bellew and Haye come together for a face-off.
I think Hearn showed that he’s still a relatively green promoter by not making sure the two fighters couldn’t get each other. There needed to be a wire fence between them or a thick, impenetrable wall of glass that separated the two fighters. That way they would never be able to put hands on each other. Yeah, if they wanted to, they could press against the glass, but so what? They still wouldn’t be able to shove or throw shots.
My guess is the two fighters will continue to have face-offs all the way up to the final weigh-in for the fight, and I think we’re going to see more physical altercations. I hate to say it, but I see all this as theatrics to help sell the fight.
“I was aware he might try something and wanted to make sure I didn’t damage him. All it takes is one shot from me and he’s got a broken jaw, the fight’s called off. I was never going to do anything too dramatic,” said Haye.
Yeah, it would definitely be bad news if Haye lands a shot on Bellew’s chin during one of these face-offs, which is why they shouldn’t do anymore of them. If Bellew is going to be shoving Haye around during the face-offs, then I think we’re going to have more fists flying in the future press conferences.
I don’t know if this fight needs for the two guys to be trading shots before their fight on March 4th in order to generate pay-per-view buys on Sky Sports Box Office. I was thinking the fight would sell itself with the British boxing public, even though I see it as a non-fight and more of an exhibition type of affair. It’s not even a fair fight in my view. Bellew is just a pumped up light heavyweight, who still hasn’t faced a good cruiserweight since moving up in weight. He’s now moving up to heavyweight in a circus-like fight against Haye.
It’s more circus than a real fight in my opinion. Haye is just so much better than Bellew, and so much more powerful than him from what I see. I don’t think it’s going to be a fight at all on March 4. Unless Haye takes it easy on Bellew, I think the fight ends in the 1st round with Bellew getting knocked out. I see Bellew as a smaller and weaker version of Arnold Gjergjaj and Mark De Mori.
Bellew isn’t a true heavyweight, and he’s not even proven he’s the best or even the 5th best cruiserweight in the division where he holds the World Boxing Council strap. I think Bellew is still the same fighter that light WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson absolutely smashed three years ago in stopping him in the 6th round in 2013. The only difference is that Bellew has moved up to cruiserweight and beaten eight fighters of mixed talent in that division. Bellew hasn’t faced the really good cruiserweights yet like Oleksandr Usyk, Marco Huck, Mairis Briedos, Krzysztof Glowacki, Murat Gassiev, Beibut Shumenov or Denis Lebdev. I suspect that Bellew will never face any of those guys. Bellew’s promoter Eddie Hearn will likely not match him against those guys.
What’s unclear is whether the WBC is going to strip Bellew of his cruiserweight title or not if he loses to Haye on March 4. Does the WBC just pretend that the Haye-Bellew fight never existed and let Bellew keep his WBC cruiserweight title if he gets beaten by Haye or does the WBC strip him and order #1 Briedis to face #2 WBC Marco Huck for the vacant WBC belt. I think it would fair if the WBC stripped Bellew, because if a champion is going to freeze his title so that he can fight guys in other weight divisions, then I don’t see how they should be allowed to keep their belt if they lose that fight. Bellew is not only freezing his WBC belt, he’s freezing the career of the top contender for his belt. The WBC should be doing something about that by stripping Bellew if his title if he loses in my opinion. Heck, I think Bellew should be stripped of his WBC title for him fighting outside of the cruiserweight division. If you’re not continuing to fight in your own weight class, even for one fight, I think you should be stripped of your title. If this was the NFL, would a football team be allowed to freeze their schedule so that they could go face a team from another league? That would never work. The WBC needs to make a decision what they’re going to do with Bellew’s WBC belt, because if he can just freeze his cruiserweight title to fight other guys at heavyweight, then what’s to stop him from doing this type of thing again? If I was a contender, I wouldn’t want to be one of the top 15 contenders waiting on a title shot against Bellew. If he’s going to be fighting at heavyweight and freezing his title, then I would be forced to wait each time he does this.
