Back in March, David Haye stepped into the ring against Tony Bellew as a firm favourite. Punters had backed him well to go and do the business, but he failed. Part of that was down to injury and part of it was down to clearly underestimating his opponent a bit. Haye picked up an Achilles problem half way through the fight and was ultimately stopped in the 11th in what proved to be a shock result.
So the card produced an upset on the night and now the two have announced that they will go at it again in a rematch on December 17th. The Hayemaker has been taking the lion’s share of early betting to get things right this time around and Ladbrokes have him at 1/3 to win the bout. That leaves Bellew as 9/4 underdog for the fight.
After the fight, Haye split with trainer Shane McGuigan to go on to team up with renowned Cuban coach Ismael Salas, a trainer of multiple world champions. But there will be questions about whether or not he will be able to go full force on his Achilles for the fight, despite having been in full training for the last six months. That and the new partnership will raise plenty of discussions.
Haye will of course know his opponent better and the Hayemaker was probably surprised at how good of a tactical fight Bellew produced against him earlier in the year. There’s no way to tell if the Hayemaker would have gone on to beat Bellew, but there were signs in the fight that his opponent was counter punching his way to a decent result. Both were responsible for some ugly pre-fight stuff which needs to be toned down a bit ahead of the bout and there’s probably no love lost between these two.
So this could be a pretty tight fight between the two with both having something to prove. There is quote of 28/1 at Ladbrokes on the draw.
Jessica Bridge of Ladbrokes said: “Injury obviously cost Haye first time around, and although he may have underestimated Bellew somewhat, both bookies and punters are in agreement he’ll be back with a bang on December 17th.”
David Haye v Tony Bellew Winner Odds
David Haye – 1/3
Tony Bellew – 9/4
Draw or TD – 28/1
