By Scott Gilfoid: Trainer Dave Coldwell is talking about the March 4 fight between heavyweight David Haye and cruiserweight Tony Bellew being a 50-50 fight when the two of them meet each other on Sky Box Office pay-per-view at the O2 Arena in London, England. Coldwell talks about Haye being inactive for four years until recently, and not having had a real fight since his match against Dereck Chisora in 2012.
The way Coldwell sees it, Bellew vs. Haye is a toss-up fight where the winner could be decided by whichever fighter lands first. The boxing public doesn’t agree. They see the fight as a gross mismatch with Haye (28-2, 26 KOs) being far too good for Bellew (28-2-1, 18 KOs).
They think the fight will end quickly in the 1st or 2nd round, as soon as Haye lands a hard shot on Bellew’s chin.
It’s understandable why Coldwell might want to talk up the 33-year-old Bellew’s chances in this mismatch. The more boxing fans that purchase the fight the better it is for them. You get all that sweet cash pouring in from fans buying the fight, thinking it’ll be a competitive one. However, if/when the fight doesn’t turn out to be a competitive match-up, I just wonder what the fallout of this match will be for the British pay-per-view industry. We saw the PPV buys drop off for the fights in the U.S that came after the disappointing fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao in 2015. That fight lacked action, competitiveness or excitement.
The prices for the fight were hiked big time, and still purchased it on PPV. If the Haye-Bellew fight turns out to be just as bad a mismatch, I think there might be a lot of British fans seeing red for having purchased the fight. I’m just saying. I’d hate to be the fighter that has my next fight on PPV in the months following the Haye vs. Bellew fight.
If the fans get burnt by the Haye-Bellew fight being a dud, will they want to pay their hard earned money for other fights in 2017? Of course, if the fans purchase the Haye vs. Bellew fight hoping to see Bellew get knocked out, then they might be ecstatic at seeing Haye blast him out in one or two rounds. It’s all so predictable though. It’s hard for me to get interested in a fight where I already know what the outcome is going to be. The problem is I’ve seen Bellew, and I know what an average fighter he is at cruiserweight.
Bellew still hasn’t faced his mandatory challenger Mairis Briedis, and I have a pretty good idea why. If Bellew can’t/won’t even fight Briedis, then how confident can you be that he’s going to do well at all with Haye? It’s a sick mismatch in my book. Bellew doesn’t stand a ghost of a chance. The only thing I see interesting about the Haye-Bellew fight is me predicting which round Bellew will get it.
I think it’s going to be the 1st or the 2nd. No way do I see Bellew seeing round 3. I see Bellew as a thin version of Mark De Mori. He’s there waiting to be hit by Haye. I don’t think Bellew could even beat Haye’s last two opponents Arnold Gjergjai and De Mori. If Bellew can’t beat them, then how can he beat Haye? He can’t.
Coldwell said this to skysports.com in talking about Bellew’s chances against Haye:
“For me, coupled with the fact they are both big punchers, they both can get hurt, yes it’s a 50-50 fight,” said Coldwell. “We’re not talking about the old David Haye, we’re talking about an older, more inactive David Haye. When was the last time that David Haye looked fantastic in a real fight?”
It sounds like a nice like pipe dream in Coldwell spouting on about Bellew’s chances against Haye, but Gilfoid doesn’t see it happening.
I’m just wondering how many boxing fans in the UK are going to be interested in purchasing the Haye vs. Bellew fight on Sky Box Office pay-per-view. I hope it does well, but I just can’t see that happening. To me, Haye-Bellew is a fight that should be shown on free television. It’s more of an exhibition type of fight in my view. I don’t see the fight as one that should even count in the record books, because Bellew is moving up in weight and hasn’t proven himself at heavyweight.
Assuming that Bellew fought some decent fringe level heavyweights like Dillian Whyte or Jarrell Miller and beat them, then I would be on board with seeing him fight Haye. But do I think Bellew could beat Whyte or Miller? No, I don’t. I think Bellew would be absolutely smashed by either of those guys. Miller would get it over with quickly by dropping some huge bombs on Bellew in the 1st to get him out. I think Whyte would slowly break Bellew down with his right hands to the head and body. Bellew would eventually get dropped for the 10 count by Whyte if he didn’t quit in between rounds or have the towel thrown in.
“He’s been having real fights. Mateusz Masternak was a real fight, Illunga Makabu was a real fight and he had a bit of fun in a shootout with BJ [Flores],” said Coldwell about Bellew.
I wasn’t impressed with Bellew’s wins over Masternak, Makabu and Flores, because I don’t see those guys as the quality fighters in the cruiserweight division. Bellew beating those guys told me absolutely nothing.
Now if Bellew were to fight and beat these guys, then I would be very, very impressed: Briedis, Oleksandr Usyk, Murat Gassiev, Denis Lebedev, Krzysztof Glowacki, Krzstof Wlodaryk, Marco Huck, Grigory Drozd, Yunier Dorticos, Dmitry Kudryashov or Beibut Shumenov. I just wonder why Bellew hasn’t been matched against any of those fighters by his promoter Eddie Hearn. Is it an accident that Bellew hasn’t ever been matched against all of those quality fighters or is it something that has been done as a strategy? In other words, avoid all the good fighters and fight the lesser cruiserweights. Since Bellew isn’t showing any willingness to fight the best cruiserweights in the division, then why in the heck should I believe that his fight against Haye is going to be a 50-50 affair like Coldwell is blabbering about?