By Scott Gilfoid: Former WBC cruiserweight belt holder Tony Bellew (29-2-1, 19 KOs) and David Haye (28-3, 26 KOs) will be returning to the ring for a rematch on December 17 at the O2 Arena in London, England.
Haye vs. Bellew will be televised on Sky Box Office in the UK. It’s unclear whether the fight will be televised in the U.S or not. Perhaps it might be shown on the web through pay-per-view; although I doubt there will be much interest from the U.S fans in purchasing the Bellew-Haye fight. Neither fighter is a world champion at this point.
Bellew essentially gave up his WBC cruiserweight title by not fighting the winner of the Mairis Briedis vs. Marco Huck fight. Haye lost his WBA heavyweight title 6 years ago in getting beaten by Wladimir Klitschko by a 12 round unanimous decision in 2011.
Bellew is saying he’s to be ending Haye’s 15-year pro career on December 17 when they meet up for the second time. Unless Haye suffers another debilitating injury of some kind, I think it’s doubtful that Bellew will score another stoppage. With the way that Bellew was fighting the last time against Haye, he’s not going to be sitting down on his shots enough to score a knockout. Bellew looked afraid to plant his feet to throw his power shots until Haye was injured. Even then, Bellew’s power wasn’t sufficient to hurt Haye. Bellew is more of a light heavyweight when it comes to punching power. He doesn’t punch at the cruiserweight or at the heavyweight level.
The Bellew-Haye 2 fight is to find out who the better fighter is between them, as in their first fight, Haye suffered a terrible ruptured Achilles tendon in the 6th round, and the injury hampered his success in the fight. The fight was stopped in the 11th round when Haye slipped and fell outside of the ring. Haye’s trainer Shane McGuigan then had the fight stopped. Haye didn’t look hurt. He just looked like he had slipped and fell out of the ring.
Since Bellew’s win was tainted due to the Achilles injury Haye suffered, the two fighters will do it again. Before the injury, Haye was winning the fight with his jab alone. Bellew was fighting defensively, doing little more than dashing away each time Haye would come forward to land a right hand or a left hook. Bellew was landing occasional right hands, but then he would scat to keep from getting hit. It was a complete spoiling game plan for Bellew, and Haye did not look like he was prepared for that. Never the less, Haye was getting the better of Bellew up until he suffered in the injury in the 6th. Bellew was helpless to stop Haye’s jab. Had the injury not occurred, I think Haye would have eventually cornered Bellew and knocked him out cold, because the Liverpool fighter couldn’t run forever. He’d eventually have gotten caught by Haye. It was a very, very ugly fight to watch until the injury. Picture Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao. Bellew was fighting defensively and it was boring to watch.
“I’m happy that this is taking place,” Bellew said to Sky Sports News. “This is what the fans want; this is what everybody is clamoring for. I am going to turn up and prevail once again.”
Let’s be clear on this. Bellew vs. Haye 2 isn’t what the fans worldwide want. It’s what the British boxing fans want. I’d say that the fans outside of the UK would prefer to see Haye fight Deontay Wilder or Anthony Joshua rather than fighting Bellew again, because those guys actually matter. Bellew isn’t well known outside of the UK. If you ask the casual boxing fans in the U.S if they’ve ever heard of Bellew, they’d tell straightaway they’ve never heard of the guy. But the fans that do know of him aren’t all that excited about seeing him fight Haye again.
When Bellew was briefly the WBC cruiserweight champion, he arguably dodged a fight against #1 WBC Mairis Briedis, who currently is the WBC cruiserweight champion. Boxing fans wanted to see Bellew face Briedis, who is incredibly talented and he may end up winning the World Boxing Super Series cruiserweight tournament that is taking place. Instead of fighting Briedis, Bellew went soft, fighting fringe contender BJ Flores, ranked at No.14 by the WBC at the time. Bellew kind of showed what he was made of by choosing not to fight #1 Briedis and going for the easy fight against #14 Flores. As I was saying, Bellew vs. Haye means zero outside of the UK. That fight is for public consumption only in the U.S.
The boxing fans from elsewhere around the world want Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn to make the Joshua-Haye fight. Hearn should have made that fight a long time ago. It’s incredible that he’s been matching Joshua against the likes of Eric Molina, Dillian Whyte, Charles Martin and Dominic Breazeale instead of David Haye. It tells me that Hearn questions whether Joshua can get the job done. I think Hearn is doing is arguably what Golden Boy Promotions did with Gennady “GGG” Golovkin by waiting until he was 35 and showing signs of age before letting their money fighter Saul Canelo Alvarez fight him. Haye is about to turn 37 in October, and he’s been waiting 3 years for a fight against Joshua. Haye vs. Joshua isn’t likely to happen in 2018. So what we’re probably looking at is the Joshua-Haye fight not taking place until Haye is 38 in 2019. That’s if Haye is still winning by that point. Haye has to beat Bellew in the rematch for him to have a chance of ever fighting Joshua.
“When it all really comes down to it, December 17, O2 Arena, I will end David Haye’s career, because a second loss to me will close the door on his fabulous career,” said Bellew. “A brilliant fighter, a fantastic athlete, but mark my words, my style is all wrong for David Haye. On December 17, the ‘Hayemaker’ show ends at the hands of me.”
If there’s going to be a knockout in this rematch, it’s going to be Haye that does it. The only way that Haye is going to be able to KO Bellew is if he chases him around the ring like Golovkin was chasing Canelo. Bellew isn’t going to stay in one place and fight Haye like normal heavyweights. He’s going to be moving constantly. Haye will have to try and corner Bellew for him to punch his lights out. I’m just hoping for the sake of the boxing fans that Bellew doesn’t use the hit and run style of fighting that he used against Haye in the first 5 rounds of their contest on March 4 this year. Bellew was spoiling in that fight by fighting in a defensive manner. It was entirely a fight in which Bellew would land a pot shot, and then start running. Haye looked like he wasn’t ready to chase Bellew around the ring for 12 rounds. I’ve seen Bellew fight before, and I knew he was going to use this tactic.
There was no way on earth that Bellew was going to make a dog fight of it, because he falls apart when he faces big punchers with hand speed. Adonis Stevenson obliterated Bellew in 6 rounds in 2013. Bellew tried to fight Stevenson, and he was not nearly talented enough to do so. Haye hits harder than Stevenson and his hand speed is arguably better. As such, there’s no way that Bellew will stand and fight Haye. It’s going to be pure spoiling on Bellew’s part for as long as the fight lasts.
Bellew will likely use a great deal of clinching against Haye to nullify his offensive tools. Bellew will almost surely use the hit and run style that he used in the first fight. The only variation to that is Bellew will hold a lot to keep Haye from getting his shots off when he comes close. In other words, I think it’s going to be an ugly fight potentially unless Haye can figure out a way to negate all the negative tactics that Bellew will be using.