{"id":245183,"date":"2025-11-05T11:19:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T11:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/245183\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T11:19:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T11:19:07","slug":"tony-bellew-names-the-fellow-brit-who-hit-him-hardest-during-his-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/245183\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Bellew names the fellow Brit who hit him hardest during his career"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tony Bellew<\/a> vividly remembers the time he was hit so hard that, much like a donkey, his back leg performed an involuntary kick.<\/p>\n

The former world cruiserweight champion faced no small amount of power punchers, including the likes of Adonis Stevenson and Illunga Makabu, throughout his storied career.<\/p>\n

But it was David Haye<\/a> who, perhaps most notably, represented a particularly formidable challenge ahead of their first heavyweight encounter in 2017.<\/p>\n

As it turned out, the \u2018Hayemaker\u2019, by that point, was a far cry from the once explosive sharpshooter that unified the cruiserweight division nearly a decade earlier, as Bellew won by 11th round stoppage.<\/a><\/p>\n

Haye was, of course, inching ever-closer towards his retirement, and with a long list of injuries not exactly helping matters, the Londoner also suffered a second stoppage defeat to Bellew in 2018.<\/p>\n

Instead, it was in 2005 that Bellew felt the full force of Haye\u2019s power, so ferocious that even sparring gloves and headgear offered minimal protection.<\/p>\n

Back then, Haye was gearing up for his British cruiserweight title shot against Mark Hobson, only for a hamstring injury to ultimately scupper their showdown.<\/p>\n

But even while carrying the injury, at around two weeks before his scheduled contest, Haye was determined to have a move around with Olympic bronze medallist David Price.<\/p>\n

Then, upon his arrival in Liverpool, the then-24-year-old discovered that he would not only be sparring Price, but also sharing a few rounds with Bellew, who had just won the English National Championships as an amateur.<\/p>\n

Speaking with Lock&T<\/a>, Bellew gives an honest account of exactly what unfolded during their rounds behind closed doors.<\/p>\n

\u201cStill, to this day, that\u2019s the hardest I\u2019ve ever been hit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came out and just did this [adopted a high guard], like a stupid fool. He just put his hand in my face.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike an idiot, I tried to look around [his left hand], and before I knew [what was happening], this uppercut came right through the middle and hit me on the chin.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy head just went up and my back leg [kicked out], for no reason. I said to him, \u2018Good shot,\u2019 and he looked at me as if to say, \u2018You should be on the floor.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Of his 28 career wins, Haye ended 26 by knockout. He is one of only three men, alongside Evander Holyfield and Oleksandr Usyk, to unify the cruiserweight division before winning a world heavyweight title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tony Bellew vividly remembers the time he was hit so hard that, much like a donkey, his back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-245183","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}