Tony Bellew was hoping to get a title shot against one of the heavyweight champions Deontay Wilder or Joseph Parker, but it looks like he’s going to have to settle for a rematch with36-year-old David Haye. That fight is the 34-year-old Bellew’s best payday available to him, according to his promoter Eddie Hearn.
It makes sense that Haye would be the biggest fight for Bellew out of the 3, because of a couple of reasons. One, Bellew can be the A-side in a fight with Haye, who he beat by an 11th round knockout on March 4 at the O2 Arena in London, England. Bellew obviously wouldn’t be the A-side as the challenger to WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder or WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker. Those guys obviously wouldn’t be obligated to give an inexperienced challenger like Bellew to take a huge cut of the revenue in a fight against them.
Bellew would be a voluntary defense for Wilder or Parker. Bellew’s only experience at heavyweight was his win over a BADLY injured Haye. Bellew was losing the fight to Haye up until he suffered an Achilles injury. Haye likely would have cruised to an easy 12 round decision victory if not for the leg injury. It’s sad to lose like that because nothing is proven in the fight. Bellew only proved that he could beat a guy with 1 leg.
What was interesting is how Bellew crowed about his victory after the fight with Haye. Bellew was like a proud rooster in crowing about his accomplishment in beating the injured Haye. I still don’t know how Bellew was able to feel like he came out ahead in that fight, because he was losing to Haye up until the injury
“I think the three options for Tony Bellew are Joseph Parker, David Haye and Deontay Wilder,” Hearn said to skysports.coms. “We’ll be in meetings over the next few weeks with all those teams. For me, the biggest money fight out there, and the fight that the public seem to want the most is the David Haye rematch.”
The smart thing for Bellew to do would be for him to fight for a world title if he can get a title shot. The Haye fight will always be there for Bellew. Of course, it’s not easy to get a title shot though. Bellew might have thought it was going to be easy, but it’s definitely not. Wilder has to face his World Boxing Council mandatory challenger Bermane Stiverne. Parker will likely need to face his WBO mandatory Hughie Fury next.
If Hearn can get Bellew a title shot next, and that’s a big if, then he needs to go for that fight by all means. The reason for that is because Haye is likely going to knock Bellew into the stratosphere when he faces him again. Once Bellew has been knocked out cold by Haye, there won’t be any reason for any of the heavyweight champions to face him.
Why would Deontay and Parker want to waste time fighting Bellew when he’s been smashed by Haye and is just another one of many defeated fighters? My advice to Bellew would be to wait around as long as he has to until he gets a shot at one of the heavyweight world titles. Yeah, the cash won’t be nearly as good for Bellew to fight for a title compared to a rematch with Haye, but like I said, he can always fight Haye again.
“It doesn’t bring the world heavyweight title with it, which is of course a carrot in the other two options, but if Tony can beat David Haye again, which I believe he can, he can fight for the world heavyweight title after that anyway,” said Hearn.
Hearn sounds like he’s got a lot of wishful thinking. He’s showing his rookie experience in analyzing boxing and the limitations of his own fighter Bellew. I hate to drizzle on Hearn’s vision thing, but Bellew IS NOT going to beat Haye in the rematch. Without a fight saving major injury, Bellew is going to lose and lose badly to Haye in the rematch. But what are the odds that Haye will suffer another major injury to one of his ankles? I’d say pretty slim. If Haye makes it through training camp for his rematch with Bellew, he’ll likely beat him with ease.
The advantage that Haye has in a second fight with Bellew is he now knows what he’s going to do when they face each other a second time. Bellew showed that he will not stand and fight with Haye. We saw that Bellew wanted no part of actually fighting with Haye until after he suffered the leg injury. Up until that injury occurred, Bellew was hitting and running. When Haye would come forward looking to land his shots, Bellew would immediately retreat. The fight was about as interesting as watching paint dry in the afternoon sun. Bellew was thinking survival only until Haye got injured.
Haye can use a couple of tactics in the rematch with Bellew to get an easy fight. Haye can either stand back on the outside or jab Bellew repeatedly in every round to win a 12 round decision or he can chase Bellew around the ring and look go knock him out. I think that might be the best approach. It’s going to be much more interesting for the boxing fans if Haye cuts off the ring on Bellew and looks to take him out with a head or body shot.
Haye was giving up too easy when Bellew would back away from him when he would attack him. Haye should have gone after Bellew the way that middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin goes after his opponents when he’s facing a runner. We saw Golovkin chase Kell Brook all over the ring and eventually stop him in the 5th in their fight last year in September. Golovkin wasn’t going to give up when Brook skedaddled away from him each time he went on the attack.
Golovkin calmly went after him until he would trap Brook against the ropes. Haye needs to do the same thing, because if he doesn’t do that, Bellew is going to be running around the ring for 12 ugly rounds. No one wants to see a fight like that, especially when it’s going to be shown on Sky Box Office PPV. Haye needs to entertain the British boxing fans. If Bellew doesn’t want to make it an exciting fight for the boxing public, then that’s on him. Haye needs to do his job by forcing Bellew to fight him, and the best way to do that is to chase him until he runs out of real estate.