David Haye: “I had Bellew ahead of Usyk by one, but he unraveled “

Tony Bellew pleasantly surprised David Haye by testing Oleksandr Usyk as well as he did Saturday night. Haye began believing Bellew had a legitimate shot to do just that against Usyk. “I thought he boxed fantastically well,” Haye told BoxingScene.com following Bellew’s eighth-round knockout defeat. “You know, I had him up one round going into that round he got stopped in. You know, he was counterpunching well. He was giving Usyk more problems than I’ve ever seen him have. He just wasn’t able to hold his form together. He seemed to unravel as the fight went on. “Usyk is a great champion. You know, no one was really expecting Bellew to win any of the rounds, let alone to be completely dominating a large majority. Particularly rounds two, three and four, I had it for Bellew in a big way. But the cream rises to the top, as they say.” Haye has a lot of respect for what Bellew has accomplished. “Bellew should be very proud of his boxing career,” said Haye, who retired once Bellew beat him a second time May 5 in London. “He says he’s gonna retire from boxing, and he should be very proud. You know, he lost to Stevenson for the light heavyweight title. Everybody wrote him off after that. They said, ‘He can’t take a shot. Blah, blah, blah.’ He moved up to cruiserweight and everyone said, ‘It’s the wrong thing. These guys are too big. From 175 pounds to 200 pounds is too much of a difference.’ But he won the European title, won the world title and then he went up to heavyweight and fought one of the big boys, fought me, and he beat me twice. So you have to give the guy credit.” “Unfortunately, he fell short here against the very, very best, a guy who’s in his prime,” Haye said. “And that’s the one thing nobody was really talking about. Usyk, he’s the perfect age for a cruiserweight [31]. He’s won all the belts. He’s done everything right in his career so far. Olympic champion, [World Boxing Super Series] title fights, and now unified titles, coming here, filling out arenas. You know, so [Bellew] lost to a great champion, who will go on to be a great champion in the future.” Tony Bellew was knocked out by Oleksandr Usyk in the eight round f a clash on Saturday night.

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