TONY BELLEW
“Bomber” opens up about the tragedies and triumphs that have defined him
ON the night of March 3, 2017, Tony Bellew fought valiantly to escape the clutches of his promoter Eddie Hearn and his trainer Dave Coldwell as the pair attempted to grab him and share their feelings of joy.
Seconds earlier, “Bomber” had defeated David Haye in 11 rounds [inset] and, having obtained a moment of freedom, headed to the vantage point of the second rope so he could sample the ecstasy experienced by his supporters.
Standing taller than those who had invaded the ring to offer their congratulations, Bellew had reached another summit. With the win, he found himself in a position to finally land the high-profile, big-money fights he had dreamed of since handing back his beloved Rotunda ABC vest in 2007.
Brief talks with both Deontay Wilder and Joseph Parker for heavyweight title showdowns followed, and a secret meeting with Tyson Fury also occurred. Not only that, Bellew, still something of a trespasser in The Land of the Giants, looked at the divisions south – those more familiar to the former WBC cruiserweight champion – and a Las Vegas discussion with Andre Ward, his co-star in the Rocky spin-off movie, Creed, provided the Liverpool fighter with another lucrative option.
“It was nice to be the centre of attention for once,” reflects Bellew, intermittently switching his focus between me and the football match that fills his huge TV screen. turning what had once been an informal chat into a moment of tense seriousness. Diverting his gaze to a photo of a smiling Ashley, his “little bro”, sitting proudly in his living room, the myriad emotions Bellew has felt since last summer are again brought to the surface. “I’m doing all I can for Rachel and the boys, but I don’t even know what I’m doing is right because I’m not built to deal with something like this; I have no idea how to make all this aching go away.” My heart goes out to him. A boxer, yes, but also my friend of over 20 years. “I’m absolutely fine standing in the ring with your Hayes and [Adonis] Stevensons because it’s all I know at the end of the day,” he continues. “But going through this every single day is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. All I want is for my family to feel better, because the last few months have been nothing but heartbreaks and stress.” In the weeks that followed, Bellew attempted to keep his grieving family on an even keel and boxing, his profession, was tossed to one side. This meant all the speculation regarding fights with the aforementioned big names faded at about the same rate as Bellew’s motivation to compete. It got more serious, too. For the first time since the turn of the millennium, ➤
“Wilder would’ve been hard due to his sheer size, but we only spoke for a little while without ever really going anywhere. Parker and Fury were more realistic options, but they also had other things out there, so it was never going to be easy sorting things out with those two.
“I knew ‘Dre [Andre Ward] from the set of Creed and we had a nice talk at the Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor Mcgregor fight. But the money for him was a lot less than what he wanted, and it was the same for me with what American television thought I was worth.”
Unbeknown to him at the time, Bellew’s moment in the Nevada sun would precede a long period when boxing was far from his mind. As his tired frame finally arrived back at Heathrow Airport, Bellew switched his phone on to the devastating news that Ashley Roberts, the younger brother of his longterm partner Rachel and a companiable fixture in his life for almost two decades, had tragically died while on holiday with friends in Mexico.
Tony raced home to be at the side of his beloved Rachel and their three school-age sons. Once there, he and his immediate family supported each other through their acute suffering, the depth of which Bellew’s opponents had never come close to inflicting.
“We’ll never get over it,” stresses Bellew,
‘I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M DOING IS RIGHT BECAUSE I’M NOT BUILT TO DEAL WITH THIS; I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO MAKE THE PAIN GO AWAY’
‘ALL I’VE EVER KNOWN SINCE I WAS A YOUNG MAN, I WAS READY TO WALK AWAY FROM BECAUSE ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS BE THERE FOR MY FAMILY’
back when Bellew was just a rotund teenager with nothing more than a dream and enthusiasm, boxing was the family Christmas tree put back into the attic for another 11 months. No longer a priority, Bellew pondered retirement.
“Boxing didn’t matter, and it took something like the death of a great, great man for that to finally happen to me,” Tony explains. “All I’ve ever known since I was a young man, the sport that has given so many happy moments and memories, and I was ready to walk away there and then because all I wanted to do was be there for Rachel and the kids. In the space of two days I’d gone from sitting ringside with Frochy [Carl Froch] at the biggest boxing event of the year, and then having a meeting with Andre Ward, to being told that Rachel’s little brother, my good mate, the uncle of my children, Cobey’s Godfather, had died in Mexico. You can’t put into words how it makes you feel because it still doesn’t feel real.”
The healing process, a slow one, eventually became normality for Bellew. The pain never went away. But the Everton fanatic learnt how to deal with it and shifted the focus toward supporting and repairing his heartbroken fiancée. The mornings spent sobbing, searching for answers when he wasn’t even sure of the questions, were gradually replaced with the numbing monotony of slow-paced runs and, with the return of routine, came renewed desire. The options on his table remained appetising, and a lucrative rematch with Haye seemed by far the most appealing. “It made sense for a number of reasons,” he says. “The first fight sold brilliantly, so it means that the public really had a genuine interest in who was the better man. The pair of us went at each other hard in the build-up first time around and there was a curiosity to see who could back up their boasts. Was David going to knock me out in the first few rounds, or was I going to make him miss and take him deep? “The public got what I knew was the right answer all along, and because of [Haye’s Achilles] injury [sustained in round six] there’s a tiny bit of hope for him. But I also want to prove that the fight didn’t go the way it did because he hurt his leg. He said he’d do me in two rounds, but he didn’t do a thing in five when there was nothing wrong with his leg.”
Using boxing to escape the bitterness and hurt that raged inside him, Bellew somehow fixed his mindset in time for December 17, the date initially scheduled for the Haye return. His training sessions, strenuous sessions overseen by his trusted mentor, Dave Coldwell, invited some much-needed routine and familiarity back into a life that had been turned upside down.
Yet, in the end, all this hard work counted for nothing as Haye sustained a bicep injury that required surgery. The fight, as a consequence, was delayed.
“I was ready to fight,” Bellew laments. “There were times when all that was on my mind was my family and their welfare, but I know too much about this sport to not respect it and
‘HAYE SAID HE’D DO ME IN TWO ROUNDS BUT HE DIDN’T DO A THING IN FIVE WHEN THERE WAS NOTHING WRONG WITH HIS LEG’
give it my all, and, believe me when I say this, David would’ve been getting a superb version of myself in December.
“Instead, the fight is pulled because he’s injured and I’m back to normal – without a fight to look forward to. That’s not where I, or any fighter for that matter, wants to be.
“I’ve prided myself on being a busy, active fighter ready to take on all challenges, so to be out of the ring for so long is so frustrating. I’ve seen it happen to other fighters like Mikey Garcia and Demetrius Andrade and I feel so sorry for them. When it’s happening to you, you’ve just got to keep pushing forward and hope everything will work itself out.”
With Haye recovered, a new date of May 5, this coming Saturday, was announced at the beginning of the year, and Bellew, months after dealing with traumatic news, is hardened and ready to go.
The mind-numbing commutes to Coldwell’s Rotherham base have become part of his life again, and with a fight to look forward to, a sliver of happiness is beginning to emerge from the poster boy of Liverpool boxing. Ensuring his family’s wellbeing remains Tony’s utmost priority, but the unity exhibited by the entire Bellew clan is allowing him the space and comfort required to plot Haye’s downfall. Hostilities, rest assured, are about to be renewed.
“I’ve said it at press conferences, on podcasts and when we were face-to-face with Johnny Nelson asking the questions [for Sky’s
The Gloves Are Off], nothing has changed from the first time around,” Bellew insists with a steely glare.
“He knows I’m no silly b ***** d that he can just walk through, and he had to learn that the hard way last year. But the majority of what he said in the first fight still stands; he’s just hiding it that little bit better this time. He 100 per cent puts that loss down to the injury, but it honestly doesn’t matter.
“I used to think about a fight with David Haye almost every single night of my life. When the time finally came, I knew every single last thing about him, down to all the pointless bits of detail. I know him better than he knows himself and that will show on May 5 when I beat David Haye for the second time and bring an end to one of the best careers British boxing has ever seen. Tony Bellew will end the career of David Haye.”