That was never really going to happen, was it
Immediately following David Haye’s injury-forced withdrawal from his scheduled meeting with Tony Bellew, a couple of high-profile fighters offered to step in for ‘The Hayemaker’ and fight Bellew.
Dillian Whyte, fresh from his victory in Cardiff last month, announced his availability for the December 17 date via Twitter.
Let’s not let the boxing fans down @EddieHearn I will fight Bellew @TonyBellew in December and beat him up even without a proper training camp @SkySportsBoxing
— Dillian Whyte (@DillianWhyte) November 20, 2017
While Tyson Fury was the quickest off the mark to throw his hat in the ring for the Bellew bout, the controversial heavyweight suggested a clash next May due to the fact that he is not close to fighting shape and still has to go through the process of getting his licence reinstated.
Fury even got into the ring and showed off the very combination with which he anticipated he would finish ‘The Bomber’.
This is the 5 punch combo I'll finish @TonyBellew with if he has the balls to sign for the fight.👍🏻 pic.twitter.com/qDzYpmVxMf
— TYSON FURY (@Tyson_Fury) November 20, 2017
It was always a call-out which was unlikely to amount to much given the fact that Bellew has previously rejected any suggestion that he would fight Anthony Joshua due to the significant size difference.
And with Fury standing even bigger than ‘AJ’, it comes as no surprise that the Bellew camp is not interested in that particular fight.
“He’s too big,” Bellew’s trainer Dave Coldwell told Boxing News Online. “That’s not a fight I would entertain whatsoever.
“Fury is big, long and very, very clever in that ring. There’s no way that I’d be interested in that fight.”
Coldwell hinted that Bellew may be interested in a shot at WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker if that option was to present itself but, with Haye’s injury so fresh, the Liverpudlian’s team did not want to commit to anything just yet.
“If it’s not too far out, we’ll speak about it. Do we wait? Do we do something else? I don’t know, we’ll see,” Coldwell said. “We’ll have to see how quickly he [Haye] does recover. The best thing about Haye is the team that he has around him, the money that he has available to him to get things sorted, he does recover from his injuries very, very quickly… This could be one of them. But I don’t know.
“Ultimately it’s down to what Tony wants to do.”
