MIAMI VICE!
BOXING Bellew: I spent Xmas with kids but clown Haye partied in Florida DAVID HAYE v TONY BELLEW
TONY BELLEW lit the blue touch paper on Saturday’s powder-keg clash with David Haye at London’s O2 Arena by launching a verbal assault on his opponent.
The Scouser dismissed his bitter rival as a “clown” and a “lonely, lost man”, and he questioned the Londoner’s decision to spend Christmas Day 4,500 miles away from his children.
Bellew, 34, said: “What father would choose to spend Christmas Day waking up in Miami in the sun with people who couldn’t give two hoots about him rather than waking up around and in the vicinity of his own children? It says an awful lot.
“I know where I wake up every Christmas Day, and that’s giving my kids the world and wanting to see them opening their presents.
“What makes him tick doesn’t make me tick. He’s a clown, a lonely, broken, lost man with no one around who really cares enough to open their mouth and tell him what he has been saying is wrong.
“He’s pathetic. A scumbag. But that’s not my problem. My problem is just to punch him in the face on March 4 and beat him. I have no care for him, he’s just an idiot.”
Haye, 36, hit back: “Everything I do is for my family, so I don’t really pay much attention to what he says.
“If I was him, I wouldn’t have spent Christmas with my family.
Comfort
“I would have gone somewhere and locked myself away from the comfort of my home.
“A solid training camp away from loved ones is the way to get the best out of yourself.
“Different things work for different people and for me this has worked great. I don’t know what he is like as a dad and he doesn’t know what I’m like as a dad – he can make his assumptions from Instagram and Twitter.
“But the facts remain, he has put himself in a very, very dangerous position now.
“And I hope that if he does care for his family, like he says he does, he does not invite them to the fight and makes sure he does not let them watch the fight on TV.
“It will be quite sad to witness what I’m going to do to their dad and husband.”
Sparks are sure to fly when the pair meet at two press conferences this week, not least because Bellew is still Heavyweight bout, Saturday, The O2, London, Exclusively on Sky Sports Boxing Office smarting that Haye threw a punch at him at the fight launch.
He also believes that Haye has not taken training for their encounter as seriously as he should have done.
Bellew added: “He has worked hard and he would be a fool not to have worked hard.
“But don’t get me wrong, I don’t think he’d prepare for Anthony Joshua the same way he
has prepared.
Sunshine
“There’s not a chance – not in a million – that his trainer Shane McGuigan would say he only needs four weeks with him before he fought for the heavyweight championship of the world. “David wanted to be in Miami under the sun training by day and nightclubbing by night.That’s his MO, it’s what he does. “I couldn’t give two s**** about the sunshine in Miami.”