THE STORY OF THE REMATCH
How Tony Bellew and David Haye became intertwined
‘ONLY DESPERATE FIGHTERS GO THROUGH WITH FIGHTS WHEN THEY’RE INJURED’
Last year, David Haye became the fighter he never wanted to become. The process started with him going through with a fight against Tony Bellew in March, when carrying an injury, and culminated with him stuck in a corner, unable to move, desperately swinging for a home run punch as a result of a ruptured Achilles tendon.
Fuelled by a need to succeed, both of these were new looks for Haye. While he’d argue he has rarely been 100 per cent fit for a fight, his body seemingly always on the verge of collapse, he long held the view that taking a fight when injured – properly injured – was something only men without options chose to do. In 2005, for example, an injured Haye sparred Bellew and David Price, said he was hit more in six rounds than he’d ever been, but attributed this to a hamstring problem and swiftly withdrew from a scheduled British cruiserweight title bout against Mark Hobson. “Only desperate fighters like Hobson,” he said at the time, “go through with fights when they’re injured.”
Moreover, the image of Haye biting down last March and standing toe-totoe with an opponent in the ascendency was one never previously associated with the former world cruiserweight and WBA heavyweight champion and one he had strived to avoid. Too good, too smart, a warrior, rest assured, wasn’t what he ever intended to become.
But it’s now 2018 and Haye is 37 years of age and a prizefighter in every sense of the word. He’s opportunistic. He’s a hustler. He’s still fighting at a time when he fully expected to be retired, living the good life, and is doing so in a way that is at odds with his early beliefs and preferences.
Which means, despite his best efforts, he hasn’t emulated Roy Jones Jnr or Floyd Mayweather Jnr, the two boxers he used to watch on DVD before each of his world title fights. Nor is he fighting like them. Back then, in his quest for perfection and a brief career, he’d explain, “I don’t want to watch them in competitive fights. I want to watch them being dominant.”
This was said not because he was averse to seeing his heroes get hit but because he valued, and aspired to achieve, a clean and conclusive victory. He wanted to imagine himself in that position – dominant – ahead of every one of his own fights. To him, the idea of slugging with an opponent, being brave, or having to fight back from the brink of defeat were foreign concepts, even though he was capable of doing all three.
And he showed this against Bellew. He slugged it out because it was his only route to an unlikely victory and he displayed bravery and a desire to rally from the brink right until the point he was bundled through the ropes, eventually rescued from his own stubbornness, in round 11.
On Saturday night (May 5), Haye and Bellew will do it all again. They will do it again for all the reasons they did first time – namely, a sizeable payday – and they will do it in order to clear up a lot of the messiness and confusion that arose as a consequence of Haye getting injured, and then stopped, last March.
Yet, because of a second Haye injury – a bicep injury, this time during training – and a December cancellation, the Bellew and Haye rivalry has the feeling of one that has run its course and tested the patience of even those who relented and watched them the first time. It has been 14 months since fight number one. Worse still, should Haye gain revenge, there’s every possibility we could be looking at a trilogy situation whereby both spend the best part of two years fighting each other in a kind of parallel universe: a non-title pay-per-view haven that exists outside the rest of the boxing world and is governed not by rankings but hype and spite, the authenticity of which is up for debate.
Not that it matters. This is a money fight – a money rivalry – initially pitched the way a celebrity boxing match would be pitched. One famous guy against another. The more famous guy, Haye, had seen his star fade somewhat but was on the comeback trail, while the less famous guy, Bellew, had appeared in a Hollywood movie, Creed, and subsequently tugged the interest of Haye, who identified the outspoken Liverpudlian as an ideal business partner.
‘I THOUGHT HAYE WAS GOING TO BE SO TIRED I’D PUT HIM TO SLEEP’
Together, they spotted an opportunity and went for it. They recognised the fight’s shortcomings and the cynicism surrounding it and did all they could to turn the public around. First, they told the masses it was a fight they wanted. (It wasn’t.) After that, they got nasty. Haye sucker-punched Bellew at their first press conference, threatened to send Bellew to hospital, and then offended half of Liverpool. Bellew, meanwhile, was part “Bomber”, part “Pretty” Ricky Conlan, and the whole thing, as a result, ignited in a way few expected.
It got better, too. The fight itself, expected to last only a round or two, turned into a compelling spectacle. Bellew started well, outboxing Haye on the back foot, and then Haye began to grab a foothold, before his foot, a problem going in, would no longer hold, or support him, and all hell broke loose in the sixth.
It was then Bellew spotted his opportunity and transitioned, in an instant, from careful counterpuncher to aggressive brawler, as Haye reverted to his default factory setting. Displaying toughness, he got grubby and his mascara started to run. But rather than cower, or look for a way out, Haye, never gutsier, embraced the crisis and felt alive. He even had moments that teased an Arturo Gatti-type comeback.
Not quite. With his corner reluctant, Haye found an escape route in the form of a penultimate round tumble. He wasn’t knocked out. He wasn’t hurt. He didn’t deserve that indignity. But it was the third loss of his professional career all the same.
Looking back, it was tough to glean much from something that felt less of a fight and more of a handicap match, but there were some surprises and insights. Here’s one: Bellew, the underdog, was a revelation in the early rounds. Composed and assured, his defence was watertight and his counterpunching skills, underestimated beforehand, were there for all to see. Most of all, he looked comfortable.
Equally, however, by round five the feeling was that the bulk Bellew was carrying as a makeshift heavyweight had started to restrict his movement and drain his speed. A concern eradicated by Haye’s injury, it remains to be seen how Bellew, the heavyweight version, functions over the 12-round distance.
What’s more, there can be no avoiding the fact it took Bellew, 29-2-1 (19), some time to finally get Haye out of there. Essentially a sitting duck, the assumption, once everybody realised he was immobile, was that Haye would either be retired between rounds or Bellew, buoyed by the breakthrough, would knock him out in the seventh. Or the eighth. Or the ninth. Or the 10th. In the end, though, Bellew had to get down and dirty with Haye, and his power, so decisive at light-heavyweight and cruiserweight, seemed to have little impact on his first heavyweight opponent.
Then again, Haye’s ability to see Bellew’s punches coming and anticipate every one of his attacks might have had something to do with this. Because as soon as Haye’s injury flared up, the pattern was set. He knew he’d be unable to move (which helped him preserve stamina), he prepared himself for the onslaught, and he predicted Bellew would hyperactively pursue a knockout victory.
With that, all element of surprise left Bellew’s punches, and it becomes a whole lot easier for a boxer to avoid getting knocked out when they spot the threat before it arrives. It’s why a boxer who offers their chin to an opponent – tensing their neck muscles, aware of what’s to come
– more often than not survives the inevitable free shot (Nate Campbell and Robbie Peden being the exception).
“I anticipated everything coming but didn’t think he was going to break down in that way,” said 35-year-old Bellew, the former WBC cruiserweight champion. “I thought he was going to tire and be so tired I was going to put him to sleep.
“What I didn’t anticipate was some fella going to the ropes and just lying there waiting for the big honey punch.
“It might sound easy to deal with but it was very, very hard. If I put the shoe on the other foot, if I’d just gone to the ropes and defended myself, he would get nothing off. I’d just defuse him.”
As for Haye, 28-3 (26), the opening four rounds are four he’ll want to forget. Flatfooted and sluggish, he invested everything in looping, telegraphed punches and struggled to hit Bellew, let alone hurt him. A continuation of the Mark de Mori and Arnold Gjergjaj formline, this was Haye at his worst, worse than he’d ever looked, and all fear of him being too much for Bellew – or ending his career – dissolved within seconds of the fight starting. (Frankly, that’s all it took for those watching to realise Haye wasn’t the Haye he used to be, nor the one he promised to be.) Still, the Londoner did start to settle down a bit in round five. He found his groove, simplified things and began to use his jab. With Bellew slowing, and with his right foot still intact, there was a feeling Haye, having failed to send his rival to hospital, was now going to concentrate on just winning a boxing match. He certainly had the tools to outbox Bellew. He still does. Blessed with athleticism and a good jab, Haye can collect rounds doing very little and keep opponents honest and on edge with the mere threat of his potent right hand. Who knows, he might choose to do that from the outset this weekend. Or, wounded by the result of their March encounter, perhaps he wants to prove a point. What we do know is his decision to appoint Ismael Salas as his latest coach is not only a wise one but indicates Haye will be lighter, quicker and sprightlier second time around. He’s always respected the Cuban teachers – Salas, obviously, but also Jorge Rubio, with whom he worked for some time in Miami – and embraces their culture, attitude and style. But, in backing Salas, he also seems to have conceded he was previously too bloated, too onedimensional and too reliant on punch power and reputation. The right move, Salas, even if he only amounts to an exotic yes man, is the choice of a humbled fighter; one who concedes mistakes were made; one who is willing to go back to basics.
What bearing any of this has on Saturday’s fight is not yet known. For now, it merely adds more layers and mystery to a master of deception and reinvention, someone whose greatest gift, greater even than his knack for knocking people out, is an ability to sell himself and survive when critics are cruelly checking his use-by date.
Make no mistake, Haye is a survivor. No longer fresh-faced, there’s visible scar tissue and there are worry lines. In fact, he looks more like a fighter today – a true fighter – than ever before.
But this reality, rather than a cause for concern, is surely just symptomatic of the journey, the ups and downs, the injuries, the many retirements and comebacks. It goes with the territory. It’s the path he has chosen.
Which is why, when taking into account the fact he has dragged his broken body through yet another training camp, towards yet another first bell, there’s actually much to admire about this version of David Haye – the version he never wanted anyone to see.