Tony Bellew vs. David Haye – Results

By Boxing News - 03/04/2017 - Comments

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By Scott Gilfoid: Tony Bellew (29-2-1, 18 KOs) pulled off a huge upset on Saturday night in stopping an injured former WBA heavyweight champion David Haye (28-3, 26 KOs) at the O2 Arena in London, England. Bellew knocked the injured Haye down twice in the fight in dropping him in rounds 6 and 11.

Haye was knocked through the ropes in round 11 by a right-left combination to the head. Haye was trying to get back inside the ring when his trainer Shawn McGuigan tossed the towel in to have the fight stopped.

Haye was dominating the fight with his jab through round 5. However, in the 6th, Haye injured his right ankle and could barely stand. Bellew then dropped Haye with a series of big power shots. Haye’s injured ankle could barely keep him up. He wasn’t hurt by any of Bellew’s shots. It was more of a case of his hurt ankle not able to keep him on his feet.

From round 6 to 11, Haye could no longer generate any power on his shots because of his ankle. Bellew tried hard to knock Haye out in rounds 7 and 8, but he ended up punching himself out and failing to hurt.

Haye landed some nice left hooks and rights hands in rounds 9 and 10. Bellew wasn’t doing anything, and Haye was still landing the better shots. Bellew was connecting with more of his punches, but he had very little on them due to him being so tired out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRQ4MDfzin0

What was interesting after the fight was how Haye chose not to discuss his injured ankle despite being asked repeatedly by the interviewers. It makes you wonder if Haye didn’t want to be jumped on by the boxing fans and the media for him fighting with an injury. There was talk before the fight that the 36-year-old Haye had injured his right Achilles tendon in training. He had gone to Germany to visit a doctor over there, and there was speculation that he had gone there to have his Achilles checked out. If Haye did take the fight with an injury, a lot of boxing fans would be angry about it, because there was no way that he could fight effectively with an injury like that. Once Haye hurt his ankle in the 6th round, the fight was effectively over. Bellew was able to pot shot at will.

After the fight, Haye asked Bellew for a rematch, but he wouldn’t commit to it. Bellew instead mentioned the possibility of him fighting the winner of the Anthony Joshua vs. Wladimir Klitschko fight, He said he would talk to his promoter Eddie Hearn about it. Hearn also promotes Joshua, so it would be an easy in house fight for him to make.

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All in all, you can’t really say much about Bellew’s win tonight. All you can say is he was able to beat a one-legged fighter in David Haye. I don’t think for a second that Bellew would have won the fight if Haye hadn’t been hurt. Whether Haye came into the fight with a preexisting injury or not is unclear. The boxing fans might not ever know. But it would be huge news if Haye had a bad injury to his Achilles BEFORE the fight, because an injury of that type should have caused the fight to be postponed. There’s no way that Bellew would have won the fight had Haye kept the same form he had in rounds 1-45. Haye was the better man in landing his jab alone. He wasn’t connecting with his right hands and left hooks all that much, but his jab was doing the job on Bellew. The fight was one-sided until Haye tweaked his ankle.

“We just secured my kid’s future,” said Bellew after the fight. “We can do it again. Who wants to see it again?”

When Bellew asked the boxing fans at ringside if they wanted to see him fight Haye again, there was only mild applause. The fans obviously weren’t happy about paying to see a fight that was more or less decided on an injury rather than by actual fighting. You can argue that Haye’s trainer McGuigan should have had the fight stopped in round 6 due to his ankle injury rather than waiting until round 11 to toss in the towel. Either way, I don’t know that the fans are going to want to see a second fight between Bellew and Haye after tonight’s disappointment, especially if the fans think that Haye took the fight with a preexisting injury to his ankle. If Haye does need surgery on his Achilles, it could keep him out of the ring for a long, long time. An injury of that type could take as long as a year for Haye to come back from it. Even then, you don’t know how strong his Achilles will be. It might take a long time for Haye to come back. Bellew isn’t going to sit idle waiting for Haye to return to the ring. He needs to keep his own career moving forward, and that might mean that he gets to fight the winner of the Joshua vs. Klitschko fight instead of the talented WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder.

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“I trained good going into the fight,” said Haye. “I wanted to do a demolition job. I hit him hard on the chin tonight. I’d love to do it again. If the fans want to do it again, I’d love to do it again. He’s the man. He beat me fair and square. I can’t think of a world heavyweight title now. I have to beat him. If he’d like to oblige me, I’d like to do it again,” said Haye.

What I’m wondering is why Haye didn’t mention the injury to his ankle AT ALL when he was speaking after the fight. How do you not mention the injury? That’s the very, very weird thing about the aftermath of the fight. Haye had his right ankle wrapped up after round 9. It’s not as if he wasn’t injured. The whole world could see that Haye was hurt. Why didn’t he discuss the injury after the fight? By Haye being silent about the injury, it’s going to lead a lot of boxing fans to think that it was a preexisting injury. The fans aren’t going to like the idea of Haye taking a fight with a bad injury if that’s what they think. Haye needs to speak to the media to let us know whether he came into the Bellew fight with a bad injury or not to his right ankle.

”I’m the most valuable heavyweight in the world outside of Anthony Joshua,” said Bellew after the fight. ”Before I say I’ll fight the winner of the Joshua –Klitschko fight, I’ll have to sit down with Eddie [Hearn].”

So there it is. Bellew is already talking about HIM fighting the winner of the Joshua vs. Klitschko fight. The thing of it is, Bellew will likely get the title shot just because he’s in the same Matchroom Sport stable as Joshua and he shares the same promoter in Eddie Hearn. Frankly, I don’t think Bellew earned a title shot against Joshua, because Haye was injured and he’s not paid his dues in the division like talents like Deontay Wilder. I’m just saying. For Bellew to get a title shot against Joshua straightaway after beating a one-legged Haye, I don’t think it’s fair and I don’t think it’s fair to the boxing public. Haye wasn’t 100 percent for the fight tonight, and Bellew’s win was completely tainted in my opinion.

”He beat me fair and square,” said Haye after the fight.

As I said before, how does Haye not mention his injury? Bellew beat him fair and square? If that’s the case, then why was Haye limping around the ring and falling down repeatedly due to his right leg not able to hold him up?