After making his return to the ring in January 2016 following a three-and-a-half year break from fighting, Haye claims he has chosen to fight Tony Bellew due to public demand.
“The public demand for me to violently knockout Tony ‘The Bell-End’ Bellew was simply too strong,” said Haye.
“The country is fed up of his constant yapping. Even in his home town of Liverpool, I would be stopped in the street by people begging me to spectacularly send him into retirement.
Haye has mocked Bellew for taking a cameo role in the most recent film from the Rocky franchise, Creed.
“Bellew is completely delusional if he thinks he can beat me. He still thinks he’s on the set of Creed and there will be some kind of Rocky style happy ending. But come March 4th at The O2 I will bring reality crashing down on him.”
The Liverpudlian fighter went on to call out David Haye, who was at ringside to watch his comfortable third-round victory over BJ Flores.
Bellew has admitted he is taking a huge risk in fighting the former world heavyweight champion, but the lifelong Everton fan maintains he does not fear Haye.
“He’s probably the most dangerous heavyweight in the world. It is such a big risk, with so little reward, which is why, and I understand why, nobody wants to face him. I will. He doesn’t scare me.
“He’s a massive puncher, he’s lightning quick for a heavyweight and he’s a really good fighter. That’s why the heavyweights don’t want to fight him.
“The reason I want to face him is I want to prove I am the best cruiserweight out there. In my eyes he’s a big cruiserweight but he’s still a cruiserweight.
“If he want to put himself out there, I am one of the hottest fighters in the world right now.
“I am the WBC cruiserweight champion of the world, I am knocking out everyone I touch and I really do believe I will knock him out, too.”
“I’ve backed him into a corner, left him nowhere to go, and now I have what I want,” said Bellew. “I’m not under any illusions, I know exactly what I am going up against, it’s big risk, big reward.”
David Haye is looking in formidable shape after spending the winter in Miami with his long-time trainer, Shane McGuigan.
“These occasional sessions & his morning sunrise meditation seems to be working wonders for [Haye’s] physique. [Going to] join him tomorrow morning,” McGuigan wrote beneath a picture of the two.
Haye also posted a picture of him and his trainer playing basketball on a £27m super-yacht.
“While he is posing in the sun, I am grafting in the cold, but it is what it is, we will see,” said an unimpressed Tony Bellew.
The hotly anticipated fight is all the more interesting given the fact the pair clearly dislike each other.
In a fiery press conference to promote the fight last year, Haye appeared to throw a punch at Bellew as the pair fulfilled the obligatory head-to-head photo.
Both men had to be separated by security and ushered into different rooms following the fracas.
Source: telegraph.co.uk
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