By Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn says newly crowned WBC cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew (27-2-1, 17 KOs) will be back inside the ring in September or October of this year. Bellew WILL NOT be fighting heavyweight contender David Haye at that time, according to Hearn. He wants to put the Bellew-Haye fight together for February of 2017.
It’s a fight that will obviously require a lot of back and forth negotiations to get the fight made. Bellew has a mandatory coming up for his next fight, and that would be against either former WBC champion Grigory Drozd or Mairis Briedis. Under the World Boxing Council’s rules, champions that win vacant titles, as we saw with Bellew last month, are required to fight their mandatory challengers in their first defense.
Hearn is hoping the WBC will forget about this rule and just let Bellew fight a voluntary defense against whomever they select. It’s not surprising that Hearn would like for Bellew to swerve having to fight his WBC mandatory challenger because there’s a very good chance he would lose to Briedis or Drozd in his first defense.
For casual boxing fans that have never seen those guys fight, they might think Bellew would beat them just like he did #1 WBC rated Ilunga Makabu on May 29 last month in his third round knockout. The reality is much different. Drozd and Briedis are much better fighters than Makabu, and arguably much better than Bellew with better power and a lot more boxing skills. If Bellew fights either of them, he would be the underdog. As such, it’s not surprising that Hearn is hoping the WBC will let Bellew get a voluntary defense first rather than play it by their standard rules for new champions in his situation. Having the WBC forget about their rules so that Bellew could fight someone less talented than Briedis and Drozd would give him a good chance of holding onto his title.
“He had a vacant title, and when a vacant title is contested with the WBC, there are mandatory obligations. Whether they’ll let us have a voluntary in the meantime, who knows?” said Hearn to IFL TV about Bellew. “It would be nice if they would. Then we could turn it around quickly. But we have got former champion [Grigory] Drozd. There’s also the final eliminator with [Mairis] Briedis and [Olanrewaja[ Durodola, so there’s a few options. I’ve got to meet with Tony this week to see what we’re going to do, but I’d like to see a fast turnaround for him and that would probably be September,” said Hearn.
What’s interesting here is that Hearn wants Bellew not only to be given a voluntary defense next, but also be allowed to fight David Haye in his next fight after that. In other words, Hearn wants Bellew to put his mandatory obligations on hold for two fights before potentially having him finally get around to facing Drozd or Briedis.
The WBC would have to let Bellew skip the mandatory challenger twice in a row if Bellew is able to do what Hearn wants him to. I think that’s bad for boxing, and definitely bad for Brieidis or Drozd, whichever the WBC let’s get a shot against Bellew.
“Bellew fancies fighting Haye. He knows it’s a big fight,” said Hearn. “He thinks he can beat him. It’s a fight that the public can get excited about. It’s not a fight that will happen next, but the one after is possible. I’m sure David Haye wants to win a world title, but I think he’s motivated by big money. That is a fight [Haye vs. Bellew] that could make big, big money. So I think both guys are excited about it. It’s a fight that is entertaining, both in and outside of the ring. You’d have to find a catch-weight. I think Tony has had a couple of conversations with David. I spoke to David’s lawyer about it. There’s certainly no negotiations at the moment. I think Tony will return to the ring in September or October. David will fight around the same time. I don’t think so [that Bellew and Haye will be fighting in 2016]. I think it’ll be like February of next year. It’s a fight that has already created a lot of interest. I know it’s big. The most important thing for us is to find what’s next for Tony, and then we’ll look at Haye after that,” said Hearn.
The best way for Bellew to get around his WBC mandatory obligations is to vacate his WBC belt just like Saul “Canelo” Alvarez did. If the WBC chooses to play it by the rule books and order Bellew to face his mandatory challenger in Briedis, then Bellew an swerve the fight by vacating the strap. Honestly, I won’t be surprised at all if that’s what Bellew winds up doing in this case if the WBC does have him fight one of those two talented Eastern European fighters, because they could really spoil it for Bellew by beating him badly and then wrecking any chances he has of fighting Haye.
I do not see Haye electing to fight Bellew if/when he loses to Drozd or Briedis, because it would make Haye look like a cherry picker to fight him under those conditions. The fans would want to know why Haye isn’t fighting the guy that beat Bellew. Haye would likely have a great deal of problems against Briedis or Drozd. Those guys can not only punch, but they have strong chins, and they’re very smart fighters.
I don’t know that Haye could deal with a smart fighter in the ring that can stand up to his shots. Those guys would take the aging 35-year-old Haye into the deep waters like Carl Thompson did and likely KO him. I thought Haye was starting to look ragged and tired in the 2nd round of his fight against Arnold Gjergjaj recently in their fight last month. The muscle weight that Haye has put on recently has slowed him down, and he’s not as quick on his feet as he used to, and he looks like he’ll have stamina issues when he gets dragged into the later rounds.
I see it as bad news for boxing if the WBC bends over backwards to accommodate Bellew by letting him have a voluntary defense next rather than ordering him to face him mandatory. If Bellew doesn’t want to face his mandatory next, then he should vacate the belt so that other fighters get a chance at the belt rather than being put on hold while Bellew faces whoever he wants.