Haye says he’ll be ending Bellew’s career on Saturday

boxingnews24.com

By Jim Dower: David Haye could wind up in hot water with the British Boxing Board of Control for some of the comments he’s made about his opponent Tony Bellew for this Saturday at the O2 Arena in London, England. Haye said that he’s going to “hospitalize” the 33-year-old Bellew, and cave in his skull.

Haye also said he’ll be ending Bellew’s boxing career on Saturday night. It seems that Bellew has gotten on Haye’s nerves with some of the comments he’s made about him, and he genuinely upset by them.

This isn’t staged animosity on Haye’s part. He looks very angry and quite agitated with some of the comments that Bellew has made about him. In the final press conference on Monday, Haye looked like he wanted to pounce on Bellew and thrash him while he was trash talking him in front of a large group of his supporters. Haye had to sit and take the abuse, but he promised that he was going to get even with the 6’2” Bellew on Saturday. Haye says he wants the beating to last, but he doubts that Bellew will be able to stay take many of his big shots before he goes down for the count.

“I’ve never had a fight where i wanted to cave someone’s skull in like this,” said Haye on Sky Sports’ Soccer AM.“I can guarantee you he’s going to be retiring this year. He won’t be boxing after March 4, no way. Just like John Ruiz didn’t box, just like Mark de Mori, just like Nikolai Valuev,” said Haye

Bellew is being pegged for a fight against IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua in the near future if he can get past Haye. Bellew’s promoter Eddie Hearn is confidence that he’ll beat Haye, and he wants to put him in with the 6’6” Joshua at some point.

If Bellew loses to Haye, he can always move back down to cruiserweight to defend his WBC title in that weight class. Of course, that’s if Bellew isn’t injured during the Haye fight.
Haye should have known that fighting Bellew was going to involve a lot of trash talking during the run up to the fight.

Bellew usually works over his opponents by trash talking them to a high degree before he fights them. A lot of times, Bellew appears to get into his opponent’s he head with the things he says about them. When Bellew fought Adonis Stevenson in 2013, he had looked like he had gotten the better of the Canadian fighter with the trash talking. Stevenson didn’t do much trash talking. Instead, Stevenson waited until he got inside the ring to let his fists do the talking for him. Bellew ended up getting knocked out in the 6th round. Bellew believes that he’s improved since that fight. We’ll see on Saturday night if he has. Bellew has certainly won all of his fights since the Stevenson fight, but he’s not faced anyone with the kind of talent that Haye has or the same kind of punching power.

“We are obviously investigating his comments because it shouldn’t have been said,” BBBofC secretary Robert Smith told ESPN.com. “We [Haye and the Board] will get together after the fight. Saying you are putting people in hospital is totally unacceptable.”

What has to be seen as good news for Haye is that there are only 4 more days before he’ll be facing Bellew on Saturday night on March 4 on Sky Box Office PPV. Haye only has to take abuse from Bellew for a little while longer before he meets him inside the ring on Saturday.

Haye, 36, hasn’t said whether he’ll look for a rematch with Bellew if he loses to him. Haye is so confident of victory that he hasn’t bothered to discuss what he’ll do if he ends up losing the fight. It’ll obviously be a crushing blow to Haye’s boxing career. It doesn’t matter if Haye avenges the loss to Bellew. It’ll be bad enough for him to lose to him in the first place.

Bellew hasn’t discussed what strategy he’ll use to defeat the 6’3″ Haye. Bellew would do well to emphasize his boxing skills instead of his usual slugging approach to his fights. Bellew would be playing into Haye’s hands if he came out quickly by trying to punch with him in this fight.