Haye says Tony Bellew looks fat

By BoxingNews24.com

By Scott Gilfoid: David Haye sized Tony Bellew up while they were taping ‘The Gloves are Off’ special for British television, and he says he saw a nervous fighter that look fat, and is ready to be knocked out quickly in their fight in a little over a month on March 4 on Sky Box Office pay-per-view at the O2 Arena in London, England. In looking at some recent photos of Bellew, he does look kind of blubbery around the jowls. He looks like he’s carrying around some useless extra weight.

Bellew has bulked up in weight to 225lbs in hopes of being able to defeat Haye. The problem with Bellew putting on weight is he’s not going to get a chance to test himself at the new weight before he faces Haye.

That’s not good news, because Bellew doesn’t even look impressive fighting at cruiserweight. He just looks like a guy that is being matched against fringe level fighters with limited talent. Bellew has somehow been able to win a world title without fighting anyone dangerous from the upper echelon of the division.

The World Boxing Council blessed a fight between Bellew and Illunga Makabu for their vacant WBC cruiserweight title last year rather than insisting that Bellew fight a super talent like Mairis Brieidis, Marco Huck, Murat Gassiev or Oleksandr Usyk. Would Bellew be the WBC champion today if he had fought any of those guys? I’d have to say probably not. I think he would have been knocked out.

“He was super-jittery, and super-nervous. He looked fat. He looked like he’s going to get knocked out, real quick,” said Haye to skysports.com about Bellew. “The reality of the situation is that he knows how athletic I am, and how hard I hit. So unless he’s going to get a chin transplant,” said Haye.

Yeah, Bellew does look like he’s packed on the pounds – the wrong pounds. It looks like Bellew hasn’t missed too many meals in bulking up to 225lbs. I hope for Bellew’s sake that he doesn’t get much heavier than what he’s currently at, because it would be sad if he came into the ring in the 230s or 240s, hoping to use weight as a tool for him to beat Haye.

As it is, Bellew’s weight is going to make it difficult for him to be competitive in this fight. It’s also likely means that he won’t be going back down to cruiserweight to defend his WBC title. When you’ve put on weight like Bellew has, it’s probably going to be impossible for him to melt that weight off for him to get down to 200 to defend his title again. But maybe that’s a good thing for him. I can’t see him beating the winner of the Marco Huck vs. Briedis fight.