By Scott Gilfoid: Tony Bellew has been out of the ring for the last 5 months resting on his laurels off his win over the badly injured David Haye from last March, and he’s now talking about wanting to fight UFC champ Michael Bisping.
Bellew, 34, would be interested in fighting Bisping either in boxing or in the UFC. Like Bellew, the 38-year-old Bisping is from the UK. Bellew says they could possibly do 2 fights, one in a boxing ring and the other in the octagon. It would be up to the fans in the UK to decide whether they want to see Bellew and Bisping fight. It would be nice to see Bellew fight a good cruiserweight to prove himself, because he never did that.
Bellew was recently the WBC cruiserweight champion after beating contender Illunga Makabu for the vacant World Boxing Council title last year on May 29, 2016. Bellew stopped Makabu in the 3rd round to win the WBC strap. What’s unclear is why the WBC ranked Makabu so highly when there was arguably a far more talented fighter in the WBC’s rankings at the time in Mairis Briedis.
I think Bellew is a swell fighter, but he wouldn’t have stood a chance against a talent like Briedis in my view. I’m just saying. Bellew would have been in a world of hurt if he had to fight Briedis for the vacant WBC title instead of Makabu, who had looked completely awful in his win over Thabiso Mchunu. This is the same fighter that Oleksandr Usyk totally schooled. He made it look easy in beating Mchunu. Makabu went life and death with Mchunu before knocking him out.
Bellew smell cash in a fight against Bisping, a lot of cash. Look at what former 5 division world champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. is doing in fighting UFC star Conor McGregor this month on August 26 on Showtime PPV. Both of those fighters are going to walk away with $100 million. If Bellew can get even a fraction of that green stuff fighting Bisping, he would likely he ahead of the game if he were to fight someone like David Haye and wind up getting royally thrashed. That’s the outcome I see for Bellew if/when he fights Haye again. Heck, the only reason Bellew beat Haye in their fight on March 4 is because Haye suffered an Achilles injury in my opinion. Without that injury, Haye would have won going away.
”I’m a Michael Bisping fan, but if the money was right then the fan stuff goes out the window,” said Bellew to skysports.com. “I can wrestle, I can grapple, I punch hard, I can kick and I’ve got some kickboxing experience,” said Bellew.
Would the UK boxing and MMA fans want to see Bisping fight Bellew? I don’t see why they would. Bisping just fought Dan Henderson, who clearly had done zero to be fighting for his UFC middleweight title. If Bisping is allowed to fight Bellew too, then what kind of message does that say about the UFC? If it’s going to be a fight under boxing rules, who would want to see a fight like that? Bisping is not a great striker. He’s more of a wrestler type. He’s not great on his feet like Conor McGregor. It wouldn’t be a fair fight unless they give Bisping a handicap. A fight between Bellew and Bisping would likely be televised on Sky Box Office PPV. I think it would be a black eye for either sport for a fight like that to happen.
Bellew needs to get back in the ring already and fight Haye in a rematch or take on Andre Ward like he’s been talking about wanting to do. I thought that Bellew would take advantage of his win over the injured Haye and use the victory to get a big money fight against another top fighter, but thus far, Bellew has been doing nothing. He’s just been doing a lot of squawking outside of the ring and wasting time. Honestly, I won’t be surprised if Bellew is still flapping his gums next March about wanting to fight this guy or that guy, but still not having fought anybody. Bellew needs to take his 50-50 deal with Haye and get the rematch over with already while there’s a shred of interest still there in that fight in the British boxing public. Haye hasn’t fought since then either, and these guys need to take advantage of the fans still wanting to see them fight. The longer Bellew waits the more likely the fans will forget about the fact that they ever fought.
“I think I could get down to 185[lbs]. If the money is right, then Tony Bellew would happily enter a cage or a ring. Maybe let’s do one of them each,” said Bellew.
I guess there would be some boxing and MMA fans that would like to see Bellew and Bisping fight. I wouldn’t be one of them. I think it would be more of a joke fight than the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight. At least with that event, you’re talking about the top fighters in each of their respective sports. Bisping isn’t the top UFC fighter or even the second best. Bellew is just a guy that lucked out in winning the WBC cruiserweight title after the WBC ranked a very beatable fighter in Makabu at No.1 instead of the talented Mairis.
Bellew then chose not to defend the WBC title against Briedis. Instead, Bellew fought bottom fringe contender BJ Flores in his first and only title defense of his WBC belt before having it stripped from him due to his decision to move up to heavyweight to fight Haye. If Bellew was one of the best fighters in boxing, I could see a fight between him and Bisping as being an interesting affair, but he’s not. If Bisping is going to fight a British fighter from the boxing world, then he should face someone like Nathan Cleverly, James DeGale or George Groves. At least those guys are world champions. The last time I checked, Bellew is no longer a world champion after he made the decision not to fight stay and fight Briedis so that he could face Haye at heavyweight.
Bisping recently captured the UFC middleweight title with an upset 1st round knockout win over champion Luke Rockhold at UFC 199 on June 4, 2016. Rather than defend the UFC middleweight title against one of the top contenders in the UFC’s rankings, Bisping threw a bone to 46-year-old Dan Henderson in defeating him by a controversial 5 round unanimous decision at UFC 204. I saw that fight and I had Henderson winning. Bisping had lost to Henderson in 2009 by a 2nd round knockout. Henderson came into the title fight with Bisping with 6 losses in his last 9 fights in the octagon. You see what I mean when I say that Bisping threw a bone to Henderson. I mean, the guy didn’t deserve a tile shot.