HayeV Bellew 2 - Poll & Predictions

It's round 2 for Bellew v Haye tomorrow!!

With both boxers predicting to end each other's careers I'm pretty much expecying it to be a little more closer this time with my heart and head firmly down on the side of a points win for Tony and retirement for
Haye.

I did think Haye would stop Bellew between rounds 5 & 7 on their first fight but due his achilles in the early put paid to that & the rest was history.Regarding the rematch I think Carl Froch nailed it when he reckons Haye is a fighter racked with so many injuries & that will stop him ever being the fighter he was.When a fighter suffers a bad knockout they can often go through the motion & end up being labelled 'gunshy' (they don't like being hit for fear of being knocked out again).The same can be said with fighters (as well as footballers) after suffering bad injuries fear that those injuries could return & hampers their performance.

Haye at his peak (at Cruiserweight) was a great fighter with great hand-speed & punch power but has always been dogged with conditioning problems up to this day.His always impressive physique suggests he does train hard for a fight but when he is often found blowing after rounds 5 & 6 it suggests the cardio work in the bank for the later rounds hasn't been put in.

I've been watching the whole Bellew - Haye build up shows,head to heads all this week & something about Haye (particularly with the lack of eye contact) & his lack of words suggests he seems a bit rattled maybe it could be dawning of the no-where-else-to-go but retirement scenario should he lose or if Bellew's comments have rattled him.IF Haye comes out early off the bat & fights the way he did in the early blowouts against the likes Audley Harrison & Dereck Chisora he could stop Bellew (watch Bellew vs Adonis Stevenson to show how Bellew reacted in a fight against a much bigger puncher until he got stopped).
My heart says Haye will re-live his former glory to stop Bellew in the mid-rounds but my head tells me Bellew will grit it out & win in fight with lots of spoiling,clinching nullifying Haye to win a points decision.

why didnt I put my money on this?????, called it, with no confidence in sick note...

The ref was right to stop it. You could see Haye was looking wobbly and punchy. He couldn't even defend himself when the end came. Bellew a deserved winner for me.

Haye's finished now, he has to retire. I'm sorry for Haye fans, I really am. But the guy just hasn't got it anymore. To his credit he tried to carry on after the mandatory 8-counts but the writing was on the wall and the ref knew when to step in. Congratulations to Tony Bellew.

Great warrior spirit from Haye, but his performance level was nowhere near what it has been in the past.

I thought Haye won the first 2 rounds, but only the bell saved him in the 3rd round. Bellew says he told the referee to stop the fight then, but I'd say that letting Haye go on was correct at that time. I think the referee was spot on with his decision making and stopped the fight at just the right moment.

Physically Haye always looks as if he's trained hard for fights but he always had stamina/conditioning problems throughout his career & so to see him early in the 3rd round blowing (& running out steam) so early suggests he's over-done it on the weight-training & hasn't run them extra miles on the treadmill,cross-trainer,spinning bike which is known in the trade as money in the bank particularly when it comes to boxing in the later rounds.The savvier boxers rely on high levels of conditioning/stamina as it helps recovery rates when being caught or hurt in the early rounds as well as performing a high level of work-rate (throwing lots of punches)in the last minute of each round.As soon as Haye got knocked down in the 3rd his lack of conditioning only concluded he was never going to recover & the rest as they say is history.
I also get the feeling that Haye is at the stage of his career where he doesn't do much sparring & have that feel of getting punched in the face frequently (battle-hardening).

The frightening thing for Haye is that he got knocked down,hurt & stopped by a blown-up Cruiserweight & to think what could have happened should he had fought against the real Heavyweight big-hitters in Joshua,Wilder,Povetkin,Dillan Whyte. As other commentor's have rightly said Haye should retire & whilst his pride is hurt he still has all his faculties & focus more on his promoter role as he has a talented bunch of boxers in the likes of Joe Joyce,Venom Page etc.

As for the boxing-career path of Bellew is a bit of quandary as what to do next either stay & defend his title in a rather uninspiring Cruiserweight division with the lack of big names & not a lot of money to be made or become a full-time Heavyweight & take on the big-guns (Bellew vs Whyte would be a cracker) with Bellew suggesting he only has one or two fights left in him.

would Bellew VS Ward whet you appetite?