By Edward Chaykovsky
After months of verbally trashing each other, WBC cruiserweight world champion Tony Bellew (28-2-1, 18KOs) will finally get his man when he move up to the heavyweight division to face David Haye on March 4 at the O2 Arena in London.
Bellew tried to confront Haye last month after defending his title a knockout of BJ Flores, who is Haye's close friend. Haye had previously unified the cruiserweight division in 2008, and went on to become WBA world heavyweight champion.
Haye (28-2, 26KOs) has been inactive for several years and only had three rounds rounds of non-competitive fighting since knocking out Dereck Chisora in 2012. He snapped his layoff in January of this year.
Bellew had several options out there and believes Haye was very limited on what he could as potential fights with Anthony Joshua, Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury were not within his reach.
He feels Haye came back to boxing for one reason - to get a big payday. Their fight is going to be on pay-per-view with Sky Box Office and there should be a lot of [pre-fight banter to build up the rivalry even further.
"To be honest, he needed me more than I needed him. I know David Haye personally and he’s chasing the money. Make no mistake about that. If Anthony Joshua didn’t have the belt, Haye wouldn’t even be mentioning his name," Bellew told GQ.
"If Anthony Joshua wasn’t the personality, the character, or the champion that he is, David Haye would not even entertain a fight with him. He wants that fight for the money. So he called out Joshua and he called out Bellew because those are the biggest fights for the most money. Simple as that. And when you stick me and David Haye in a press conference, you are going to get fireworks and you are going to get box office. That’s all there is to it."
