Bellew wants to unify cruiserweight division after Haye

By Boxing News - 12/15/2016 - Comments

Image: Bellew wants to unify cruiserweight division after Haye

By Scott Gilfoid: Tony Bellew (28-2-1, 18 KOs) says he plans on coming back down to cruiserweight after his March 4 fight against heavyweight David Haye (28-2, 26 KOs), because he has a goal of unifying the cruiserweight division. Bellew, 33, says that after he unifies the division, he’s going to move back up to heavyweight to have more fights up in that weight class.

For Bellew to unify the cruiserweight division, he’ll need to beat champions Murat Gassiev, Oleksandr Usyk and Denis Lebedev. That would be very hard for Bellew to do with the way he’s performed recently.

Bellew does not look like the type of fighter that could beat any of those guys, let alone defeat the winner of the WBC eliminator bout between Mairis Briedis and Marco Huck. When/if Bellew does move back down to the cruiserweight division, he’s going to need to defend against the Huck-Briedis winner, as he’s exhausted his voluntary defenses by facing fringe contender BJ Flores and then moving up to heavyweight to fight Haye.

The World Boxing Council is fine with Bellew fighting at heavyweight against Haye and then coming back down to cruiserweight to resume being a champion. However, the WBC isn’t going to let Bellew ignore his #1 challenger indefinitely. He’s going to have to fight the Huck vs.

Briedis winner unless Bellew can get an immediately unification match after the Haye fight. Knowing the WBC, they’ll likely let Bellew steer around the Briedis-Huck winner if he’s going to be fighting a unification match against one of the other cruiserweight champions. If Bellew fights a unification match against one of the other champions, I see him losing badly. As such, Bellew may never fight the winner of the Huck vs. Briedis fight.

Bellew said this to skysports.com about him wanting to come back down to cruiserweight after his heavyweight fight against Haye:

“This is a quick stop. It’s not the long-term goal or move,” Bellew told Sky Sports News HQ. “I am the best cruiserweight in the world. I am the WBC cruiserweight world champion and I am going to remain that before and after the fight.”

I do agree that Bellew will still be the WBC cruiserweight champion after his fight against Haye. It doesn’t matter what happens in that fight, Bellew will STILL be the WBC champion. For some reason the World Boxing Council isn’t going to strip Bellew of his title if he loses to Haye.

Sanctioning bodies sometimes do that when their champions choose to fight in another division and they wind up losing. The WBC will keep Bellew as their champion regardless of the outcome of the Haye-Bellew fight. I don’t agree with that move. I don’t think it’s fair to the many challengers that are waiting their turn for a shot at the WBC title.

Bellew can just move about from cruiserweight to heavyweight and put the careers of the challengers on hold. If this was the NFL, a team couldn’t choose to play a college team and make the other NFL teams wait for a chance to play them. That team would likely be fined big time if they did that. It would hurt the franchise in a huge way. Only in boxing do you see stuff like this.

I also don’t agree that Bellew is the best cruiserweight in the division. I rate Bellew below these cruiserweights:

1. Oleksandr Usyk

2. Krzystof Glowacki

3. Marco Huck

4. Mairis Briedis

5. Denis Lebedev

6. Krzystof Wlodarczyk

7. Beibut Shumenv

8. Dmitry Kudryashov

9. Thabiso Mchunu

10. Yunier Dorticos

11. Noel Gevor

12. Maksim Vlasov

13. Youri Kalenga

14. Olanewaja Durodola

15. Dmyto Kucher

I think all of those cruiserweights would beat Bellew, and likely knock him out. I do think Bellew is a good serviceable cruiserweight, but definitely not a world champion level guy. As far as I’m concerned, Bellew is just a guy that beat a flawed Ilunga Makabu to win the vacant WBC cruiserweight title. Bellew then fought a bottom fringe level contender in BJ Flores in his first defense rather than fighting Briedis.

Bellew isn’t fighting the good fighters at cruiserweight. He’s fighting the beatable guys. That’s my opinion of Bellew. I think it’s bad news for the division when you get a champion like Bellew, because he’s not facing the good fighters. His promoter Eddie Hearn is doing his job of putting him in fights that he can win. Hearn didn’t steer Bellew towards the winner of the Glowacki vs. Usyk fight. He didn’t steer Bellew towards Shumenov or Lebedev. I think it’s pretty obvious why. Bellew would lose to those guys.

Bellew is going to need to use every trick in his boxing arsenal for him not to get knocked out by the 36-year-old David Haye in their fight on March 4 at the O2 Arena in London, England. This will be the first fight for Bellew at heavyweight, and he’s picked a very, very dangerous heavyweight for him to fight. I don’t see this as a serious fight.

It’s more circus than a serious match. Marco Huck moved up to heavyweight from cruiserweight several years ago to face Alexander Povetkin. But with Huck, he’s more of a rugged cruiserweight who could take a huge shot without getting hurt. Huck almost beat Povetkin in that fight. The only reason Huck lost was because he couldn’t keep up with the nonstop punching from Povetkin, who pushed a murderous pace for the entire 12 rounds.

What Bellew is doing is much more difficult, because Haye is explosive with his punches, a lot more powerful than him and very fast. Bellew is there to be hit, and I think this is going to end in disaster for him. This is another Bellew vs. Adonis Stevenson type of fight in which Bellew gets knocked down repeatedly and halted by the 6th. I think Haye will get Bellew out of there by the 2nd round. But I don’t think this fight was ever meant to be a serious one.

It’s more circus than a serious one in my view. The British boxing fans will pay to see the Haye vs. Bellew fight on Sky Box Office PPV, thinking they’re going to see a competitive fight. When it turns out to be a dreadful mismatch, the fans are likely going to be stomping mad, and angry at themselves for having purchased the mismatch on PPV.