Bellew is getting knocked out by Haye says McGuigan

By Boxing News - 01/09/2017 - Comments

Image: Bellew is getting knocked out by Haye says McGuigan

By Scott Gilfoid: Trainer Shane McGuigan sees Tony Bellew (28-2-1, 18 KOs) not having a good time when he gets inside the ring with former WBA heavyweight champion David Haye (28-2, 26 KOs) in their fight on March 4 at the O2 Arena in London, UK. McGuigan can’t see any other outcome than Bellew being knocked out in this fight.

I think most of the boxing world is in agreement with McGuigan’s opinion. The only thing we don’t know is which round is Haye going to lay the hapless Bellew out in the fight. My guess is round 2, but I can also see the fight ending in the 1st round depending on how aggressive Bellew comes out of the blocks.

If Bellew tries pushing the matter, then we’re probably talking about a knockout in the first 60 seconds of the fight. I hope there’s a good undercard because I see a lot of angry boxing fans on the night if the fight doesn’t go more than one round. There’s going to be a mess of people at the O2, and a bunch ordering the fight on Sky Box Office PPV, thinking it’s going to be a competitive affair. It won’t, according to McGuigan.

McGuigan said this to skysports.com about his knockout prediction for the Haye vs. Bellew fight on March 4:

“He is a performer; he can get up there and no matter who is in front of him, he can do a number on them,” said McGuigan about Haye. “Tony Bellew is reading into the activity, he’s reading into the added weight, he’s reading into too many things and I think he’s biting off more than he can chew. I just think it is only going one way and that is Tony Bellew getting knocked out,” said McGuigan.

I wish the Haye-Bellew fight would be competitive, because with the fight being on Sky Box Office PPV, it doesn’t make sense. When you put fights on PPV, they’re supposed to be at least competitive fights on paper if not reality. Unfortunately for this one, it’s mismatch on paper. It’s a DREADFUL mismatch. Bellew is still little more than the skinny kid that Adonis Stevenson mopped the deck with in 2013. That fight was downright comical with the way that Stevenson had poor Bellew looking like a human yo-yo with the way he kept dropping him. Sadly, that was the last time that Bellew fought a good opponent. Bellew skedaddled from the light heavyweight division after drubbing, and moved up to cruiserweight, where he’s won his last eight fights against flawed fighters one after another.

As far as Gilfoid can tell, Bellew has come close to beating nobody that’s good. All the talents in the division aren’t sharing the same ring with Bellew. Is this an accident or is this careful match-making by Bellew’s promoter Eddie Hearn? I could understand Bellew not facing a talented cruiserweight in two or three fights, but EIGHT fights and still no talented guys on his resume. It’s so, so sad. I think Hearn is feeding Bellew fodder, and keeping him away from the dangerous guys like Mairis Briedis, Marco Huck, Oleksandr Usyk, and Denis Lebedev.

“I hope everyone can walk away from it healthy, with a big smile on their face and lots of respect for each other, but it’s going to be a David Haye win,” said McGuigan.

Of course, it’s going to be a Haye win over Bellew in my view. That’s pretty much a given. I mean, if Bellew at least had tested himself against someone in the heavyweight division before the Haye fight, I could maybe give him a sliver a chance. But with the way that Bellew is moving straight up to heavyweight to fight Haye in his first fight in that weight class, I don’t see this as a real fight.

It looks more like Bellew looking for a cash out payday rather than him going into the fight a calculated manner by working himself into position to beat Haye by fighting top level heavyweights. The thing is, I don’t think you can put Bellew in with a top heavyweight to get him ready for Haye. Which heavyweight would you pick to get Bellew ready for Haye?

To be sure, Bellew has decent boxing skills, but I don’t think he would survive for long even if you threw him inside the ring with the likes of some of the lower ranked heavyweight contenders. I don’t think Bellew could even beat these heavyweights: Guillermo Jones, Jarrell Miller, Andriy Rudenko, Hughie Fury, Jun Long Zhang, Dereck Chisora, Mariusz Wach, Gerald Washington, David Price, and Charles Martin.

What British boxing fans fail to realize about the Haye-Bellew fight is that if it does well on PPV, it could lead to move circus-like mismatches of a similar nature in the future. If the public is willing to pay to see of this nature, then what’s to stop the promoters from continuing to give the fans fights of this type? It would be a race to the bottom. When the sport becomes a joke due to fighters with almost no chance of winning moving up in weight like this, then I think it makes a mockery out of the fight game.