By Scott Gilfoid: David Haye says Tony Bellew is going to need to make some major changes to his fighting style by the time they face each other on March 4, otherwise he’s going to be getting brutally knocked out. Haye and Bellew are fighting on Sky Box Office pay-per-view at the O2 Arena in London, England.
Haye thinks that the 33-year-old Bellew hasn’t been eating the right foods in preparation for the fight, because he’s not looking like he’s in the best shape. Bellew looks a little chunky around the jowls, as if the 225lbs that he’s weighing now isn’t firm weight.
Bellew has bulked up for the fight, but it appears that some of the weight that he’s put on has been in the form of fat rather than muscle. That’s the problem that you get when you bulk up in a hurry. The weight comes on, but it’s often a lot of fat rather than muscle weight.
Even if it was muscle weight, it might not translate into weight that can help with punching power. This is boxing. Just because you pack on a lot of muscle weight, it doesn’t mean you’re going to punch harder. Anthony Joshua is a good example of that. If you look at his fights in the amateur ranks when he was weighing 220lbs, he appears to be just as hard a puncher during that time as he is now after he’s packed on 30 pounds of muscle and is weighing 250.
“I’m looking forward to seeing, I hope he does bring his A-game,” said Haye to Sky Sports News HQ. “I hope he does do something I’m not expecting, because if he doesn’t, if the usual Tony Bellew turns up, it’s going to be pretty brutal, pretty fast. It’s going to be very bad for his health.”
It’s going to be really hard for Bellew to make it out of the 1st round against Haye on March 4. If Haye decides he wants to go after Bellew in round 1 like he did against Mark De Mori and Arnold Gjergjai, then it’s probably going to be game over for him.
Well, Bellew is pretty predictable with his fighting style. He tends to come forward in a straight up manner, looking to land a simple jab and his left hook. In his last fight against BJ Flores on October 15 last year, Bellew knocked him down three times in the fight. Flores was picked out from near the bottom of the World Boxing Council’s ratings at No.14.
Bellew chose not to defend his WBC title against his #1 contender Mairis Briedis in his first defense. The WBC didn’t force the issue, so Bellew obviously wasn’t going to take a risky fight that he might well lose, so he chose bottom dweller Flores instead. The WBC is now letting Bellew move up to heavyweight to fight Haye while keeping his WBC cruiserweight title frozen and waiting for him. It’s not a good deal for Briedis and #2 WBC Marco Huck, because the two of them are facing each other next.
The winner of their fight should arguably be the new WBC cruiserweight champion due to Bellew electing to fight outside of the division at heavyweight against Haye. But it probably doesn’t matter; because it’s unlikely that Bellew will be going back down to defend his WBC title against the winner of the Huck-Briedis fight. Bellew will likely stay at heavyweight and look to get a title shot against IBF champion Anthony Joshua.
“You’re going to see someone who is really, really positive, someone who is sharp, who watches their diet, who really takes care of themselves versus someone who – you just look at his physique – it says all you need to know about him,” said Hayea bout Bellew.
Haye is obviously referring to Bellew’s pear-shape physique, which is thick in the middle. I think Bellew really belongs in the cruiserweight and DEFINITELY not in the heavyweight division. Heck, even in the 175lb division, Bellew looked fat around the midsection, like he was carrying around some excess weight in that area.
A perfectly cut up and in shape Bellew would likely be at his best in the 168 or 160lb weight divisions, but I don’t think he fancies the idea of fighting in those weight classes. Bellew tried fighting at light heavyweight, and gave up on the idea after being knocked out by Adonis Stevenson. Rather than staying around at 175 to test his hand against the likes of Sergey Kovalev and Artur Beterbiev, Bellew moved up o cruiserweight.
Surprisingly, Bellew was able to win a world title at cruiserweight after the WBC allowed him to fight Ilunga Makabu for their WBC title rather than insisting that he face Huck or Briedis. I would have liked to have seen what Bellew would have done against Huck or Brieidis. I just don’t see Bellew doing well against either of those fighters. It was one of those lucky things with the WBC letting Bellew fight Makabu rather than the arguably much more talented Huck or Briedis.
There hasn’t been a whole lot of interest from the boxing world about the Haye-Bellew fight. Perhaps the week of the fight, the fans will start to perk up and get excited about the Haye-Bellew fight. All I know is there isn’t much talk about the fight right now with the boxing fans.