Last week, former unified heavyweight champion Tyson Fury (25-0, 18 KOs) issued a very strong warning to his new domestic rival, Tony Bellew.
Bellew, who fought most of his career at light heavyweight before making the jump to cruiserweight and then eventually to heavyweight, believes he could beat Fury.
Earlier this month, Bellew (30-2-1, 20 KOs) crushed former heavyweight champion David Haye in five rounds.
Fury had been scheduled to face Haye on two occasions in the past - and in both instances Haye withdrew with injury.
Fury, at 6'9 and usually around 250-pounds when he's in form, has a massive size advantage over Bellew.
He told reporters that he fears the possibility of permanently damaging Bellew in the ring.
"If he steps in the ring with the Gypsy King and I unleash hellfire on him, he’s only a small man and I could damage and hurt him properly. You ain’t messing with a David Haye who’s 20 years out of date. You’re messing with someone 6ft 9in, 19 stone, in the prime of me life who can knock a wall down - one of the hardest punchers in heavyweight boxing, but they don’t know it," Fury told Fighthype.com.
"If I go in there and hurt him, what good is that? How does that make me feel, knowing he shouldn’t even be in the ring anyway? Listen, we all need money but he doesn’t need money that badly to go and lose his senses and get smashed to pieces."
Fury, who has been inactive since November of 2015 when he shocked Wladimir Klitschko with a twelve round unanimous decision to capture four world titles, will finally return to the ring on June 9th in Manchester against Sefer Seferi (23-1, 21 KOs), who fought most of his career as a cruiserweight.
Bellew is laughing at Fury's next opponent - and he believes that he's got more power than the former heavyweight champ.
He says the only advantage that Fury has in the fight - is size.
"He come out and said he won't fight me because I'm a cruiserweight and he'll hurt me," Bellew said to TalkSport. "Well Jesus Christ, he's only fighting a cruiserweight isn't he?
"I think he understands that I'm a much more dangerous fight that anyone he can possibly face right now. If Tyson wants to make serious money, he knows where to come.
"He is awkward to fight of the big guys, Al. But, I'm more tricky than him, I'm quicker than him and I'm stronger than him. What he has over me, his attributes are - the attributes he has over me is size, and that's all he has over me. I actually punch harder than Tyson Fury."
