In 2016, Briton Tony Bellew became the WBC cruiserweight champion, made one voluntary defense, but was in no hurry to fight his mandatory challenger Mairis Briedis from Latvia.
Instead, Bellew challenged former cruiserweight and heavyweight superstar compatriot David Haye, who had previously returned to action after 3.5 years away from boxing.
Bellew and Haye put on a beautiful performance, making all the fans believe that there is a real feud between them. Despite the status of an underdog, Bellew won. He also proved to be stronger in the rematch.
Bellew
remembered about that confrontation: “You know, sometimes it really happens that you have a real enmity. For example, I chronically can’t stomach Nathan Cleverly. I swear to God, if he walked into this room right now, I would rush to punch him in the face. With Hay it’s different. I respected him before the fight and even admired him. When he came back to boxing and knocked out two big guys in a row, I realized that fighting him is just a fucking lot of money.”
“Remember the cult series Red Dwarf? There was a dude with an “X” on his forehead. I looked at Hay and saw banknotes on his forehead – US dollars, pounds sterling … Enmity? We didn’t have any enmity. We have known each other for a long time. Not to say that they were friends, but I always respected him … ”said Bellew.
For Haye, those two fights were the last official ones. And Bellew had another fight – in November 2018, he tried to take the title of the absolute cruiserweight champion from Oleksandr Usyk from Ukraine, but lost by a terrible knockout in the 8th round. The other day, the Briton said that he was thinking about a comeback. But there is an insurmountable obstacle.