By Scott Gilfoid: WBC Silver light heavyweight champion Tony Bellew (19-1-1, 12 KO’s) was full if excuses about what went wrong in his 12 round draw against the faster Isaac Chilemba (20-1-1, 9 KO’s) last Saturday night in their fight at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, UK.
Bellew claims that Chilemba was ready to quit by the end of the 5th, and that he made a mistake of taking the 6th or 7th rounds off and that let Chilemba get into the fight. Bellew doesn’t say why he wasn’t able to retake control of the fight after he finished taking his break in rounds 6 or 7.
One is left to guess that Bellew either continued to take a break for the rest of the fight or he simply didn’t have the talent to retake control of the fight.
What strikes me as odd was Bellew’s claim beforehand that he would be willing to die in the ring in order to win the fight, yet one of his excuses after the fight was that he didn’t put his foot down on the gas to win the fight because he thought he was winning, and he was afraid to gas out.
Bellew said after the fight: “Deep down I could have done more. I’d like to do an immediate rematch. I thought I did enough to win, but I could have done more. He’s perhaps the trickiest fighter out there. One moment he’s coming forward, and then he’s on his back foot. I hurt him a few times, and he really didn’t show much. I really could have gone through the gears a lot more, and put my foot on the gas. I know the mistakes I made. You don’t risk everything when you know you’re winning. If I thought I was losing I’d rather have gone out on a stretcher. He’s not strong. He’s very quick. He’s very slick too. He’s probably the best four level fighter I’ve faced. He does all the bases well. He knows how to defend himself. Those first six rounds he wasn’t in the fight. I don’t think I should leave fights to judges no more. I should have fought balls out. I said [to Chilemba after the fight] [‘you know I got this, don’t you?’ And he just couldn’t look at me. I didn’t take much damage in the fight. I didn’t take much punches. He’s not a puncher. Being in with him now, I know what to expect. He has one way to fight. I have many different ways. He stayed one way, slippery all the time. He waited for me to take the back foot. He was hard to nail. I really couldn’t hit him flush. I’m just so close to Chad Dawson. I’m willing to go straight into a rematch. I think I won. I really think if I put my foot on the gas in the 6th or 7th, I would have broken his heart by round 8. I think by the end of the 5th he was ready to quit.”
Bellew’s promoter Eddie Hearn said “He definitely wants the rematch. This is the path to become the mandatory challenger. There is no other route to get to the mandatory position.”
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