David Haye honestly opens up on the heartbreak he suffered when losing twice to Tony Bellew
Former two-weight world champion David Haye has been making the headlines this week after announcing his comeback to heavyweight boxing.
The 43-year-old is currently in training to shake up the heavyweight division after revealing he believes he can beat most of the current crop.
The Hayemaker hung up his gloves in 2018 after a devastating defeat to former world cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew, stopped in five rounds by the ‘Bomber’.
Their first match took place 14 months prior at the same venue, London’s O2. Haye was stopped in the 11th round having snapped his Achilles heel a few rounds earlier.
After corrective surgery and recuperation, Haye returned against Bellew with revenge in mind, but the former two-division champ was on unsteady legs, still looking injured, and was consequently stopped in the fifth after going down three times.
Looking back on the last fight of his career, the Bermondsey boxer admitted, “I didn’t see Tony Bellew as a threat, but I should’ve done. I hadn’t seen anything in his previous fights that made me think he’d beat me. Having been in the ring with him though, there’s no flash, he’s pure substance.
“By that second fight, I was still 100% confident that I’d go out there and win. It turns out that was the only time in my career I went into the ring and didn’t feel like I was capable of doing what I usually can. It felt like I was playing a video game and my ‘special moves’ weren’t working.
“I remember he threw a punch from out of range, and I had the opportunity to land the shot to end it, but nothing happened. That was one of the only times he gave me a shot. Next thing you know I’m on the floor and getting hit – it felt like it was a bad dream. I started living a nightmare in that fight.
“I wasn’t in control of the flow in that fight at all, everything I was doing just felt flat and wrong. That was it, that’s when I thought it was done. People think all my power comes from my right hand but it comes from my legs, and I lost that power in my legs. After losing to Bellew, it felt like that door had shut.”