By Rob Blakeman: From the beginning of round one of last night’s all English Heavyweight clash it was clear who the real athlete was in this fight as an impatient David Haye stalked menacingly around the ring after over achiever and Cruiser weight ‘Champeen’ Tony Bellew. The Liverpudlian’s nerves held up well and he tried to exchange punches with the much faster Haye while staying tucked up and away from trouble.
Haye just couldn’t get to his man cleanly. Suddenly in round six it seemed that all of the years of hard training caught up with Haye as the Achilles tendon in his right leg appeared to snap and he winced in pain. This looked serious and so it was to be as Haye valiantly fought on with one working leg for the rest of the fight. Haye still tried to leverage himself pursuing one big hook to get the tired looking Bellew out of there but it was not to be.
Seemingly just as suddenly in the eleventh round all over Britain it was the Boxing fans turn to wince as an injury stoppage meant we were all doomed to hear even more of Tony Bellew’s incessant and absurd ramblings for the foreseeable future.
Bellew, who couldn’t even stop a one legged David Haye for the following six rounds had to have the benefit from Haye’s corner mans towel after an exhausted Haye fell through the ropes. Bellew quickly and predictably wallowed in the afterglow of this ‘win’ for almost an hour in a post fight press conference telling us over and over how he fears no man, and how he wrestles lions in his spare time, etc, etc. He looked exhausted after round five and surely an uninjured Haye would have taken him out but no one can throw big shots without digging their feet in to do so. Fortunately for David he was in no real danger as a gassed out, flabby looking Bellew had staggered around after Haye for six rounds unable to hit a near stationary fighter with a clean shot. This should have been like beating up a drunk but Bellew couldn’t even do that clearly.
In conclusion I can only say how sad it was to see maybe the last of David Haye being mugged by a journey man while in pain and distress of injury. This was no win in real terms and there was no ‘knockout’ despite several annoying announcements across social media. We can only hope the deluded Bellew thinks he can pull off a similar victory over Anthony Joshua and takes that path but in reality it is a fight that he should not touch with a very long pole of the barge variety!