It’s quite rare for any big fight to be staged on a Sunday; even rarer if the Sunday doesn’t fall on a bank holiday weekend. The big fights these days are reserved for Friday and Saturday nights, but it seems Tony Bellew and David Haye are on the verge of agreeing to a rematch of their March battle, to take place at London’s O2, on Sunday December 17th.
Haye has just tweeted the following:
Tony Bellew says he is “much closer” to a fight with Andre Ward in comparison to a return bout with David Haye. Bellew shocked Haye back in March, beating him via 11th round stoppage (assisted by Haye’s Achilles injury) and he says he is now ready to cause another, even bigger shock by beating pound-for-pound king Ward.
Those fight fans who want, and have wanted since March, to see bitter British rivals Tony Bellew and David Haye fight a rematch will likely be disappointed. Though the two heavyweights engaged in talks after the March fight, won by Bellew in an upset, they have come to nothing; much to the chagrin of promoter Eddie Hearn.
Bellew, who stopped Haye late – this after the big favourite had severely damaged his Achilles, reduced as he was to basically a one-legged fighter – reportedly demanded the lion’s share of the purse going into a return, and Haye has not been forthcoming. This is one way to look at the collapse of the fight anyway.
Both Tony Bellew and David Haye will fight in December; it’s just a case of whether or not they will fight each other in a rematch or face someone else. It has been revealed how the two are in talks for a December rematch – courtesy of The Star – but that Haye, who sensationally lost to Bellew in March, must agree to Bellew’s purse split demands for the fight to take place.
Ward says he’d strongly look at fighting Bellew if the WBC cruiser belt is on the line
Fans await the respective next move of Andre Ward and Tony Bellew. Pound-for-pound king Ward is still weighing up his weight options, as far as whether or not he will jump up to cruiserweight, to heavyweight, or both. While Bellew, who scored a heavyweight upset over David Haye in March, is also looking at options in the sport’s glamour division.
As fight fans probably know, unified light-heavyweight champ Andre Ward, for many the reigning pound-for-pound king, has expressed a serious interest in moving his considerable talents up to the cruiserweight division; maybe even the heavyweight division.
This may or may not happen, but already, since he made his possible intentions known, one big-name cruiserweight has come out and said he would be more than wiling to accommodate Ward in his 200-pound debut: Tony Bellew. Bellew, who was given the title of WBC cruiser “Emeritus champion” after his move up to heavyweight (and a win over a one-legged David Haye this March) has informed Sky Sports he would be more than willing to get it on with the unbeaten Ward.
In this, a big year for big boxing rematches, promoter Eddie Hearn wants to add Tony Bellew-David Haye II to the list of returns that includes Ward-Kovalev II, Joshua-Klitschko II (most likely anyway) and Rungvisai-Gonzalez II. In speaking with Sky Sports News HQ, Hearn said that the public want to see the rematch (do you, really?), that he himself wants to see it, and that David Haye “needs it.”
Hearn argues how in Haye’s case, there is “no other fight for him other than Tony Bellew,” but that Bellew has plenty of options. Hearn added how the rematch, if it does happen, will likely go down in December, giving Haye’s terrible Achilles injury enough time to fully heal – “to make sure he is 110-percent,” Hearn said.
A whole lot has happened to Liverpool’s Tony Bellew since his 2013 stoppage loss to defending WBC light-heavyweight champ Adonis Stevenson – most of it good. Shortly after the painful loss, the sole stoppage loss “Bomber” has suffered as a pro, he moved up, Bellew subsequently capturing the WBC cruiserweight belt and even having some odds-defying success as a heavyweight.
The criticism levelled at Kell Brook in the wake of his 11th round KO defeat to Errol Spence is a stark reminder that boxing is and always has been a sport of extremes, wherein the very best and the very worst of human nature is exposed. Courage, respect, resilience, and skill is offset in boxing by cowardice, venality, brutality, and cruelty. Typically the former are expressed inside the ring on the part of the fighters, while the latter is the domain of the sport’s fans and spectators, many of whom take the opportunity, when watching a fight, to give expression to their own lack of achievements, happiness, or self respect by taking delight in misfortune to befall a given fighter whose only crime is to have dedicated his life to the hardest sport there is and achieve a level of fame, success, and admiration conversant with that dedication.
Tony Bellew is no stranger to an out of the ring altercation/slagging match/scuffle, and, truth be told, neither is Deontay Wilder. So it was perhaps inevitable that the two heavyweights (and, yes, Bellew has to be recognised as a legit heavyweight, having beaten former WBA champ David Haye) would get into some sort of argument when they came together at today’s Joshua-Klitschko weigh-in.
And, no, “Bomber” Bellew and “The Bronze Bomber” Wilder did not disappoint! As captured by the film cameras of iFLTV, the two engaged in a real war of words, with security, and a gate, separating them. Bellew seemed to take annoyance to Wilder’s familiar “Bomb Squad” chant, shouting back that “he [Wilder] ain’t no f*****g squad.”