By Scott Gilfoid: In his moment of glory last night, Tony Bellew (27-2-1, 17 KOs) called out David Haye and IBF/WBA cruiserweight Denis Lebedev for fights. Bellew dared Haye to come down to the cruiserweight division to face him, even though it would mean that Haye would need to lose 24 pounds of muscle to make that fight a possibility.
For Lebedev, Bellew says he would need to come to the UK to fight him, which is another unlikely possibility because Lebedev attracts large crowds in Russia for his fights. I think it would pretty much destroy Haye to lose 24 pounds of muscle right now to drain down to 200lbs just so that he can fight Bellew in a fight that wouldn’t make nearly the money that a fight against Anthony Joshua would make.
If Haye did make that mistake, then he could forget about having a chance to beat Joshua. He might still get the fight against Joshua, but his body would likely be in shock from losing 24 pounds and then putting it back on.