"I don't know what I'm going to do, so neither does he - I know that frightens him because it frightens me."
Tuesday 28 February 2017 11:41, UK
Tony Bellew's most glorious nights have arrived in a cloud of red mist. David Haye stirs the same anger within him, but it's an uncontrollable emotion that scares Bellew himself...
The switch inside Tony Bellew's head had flipped. He might as well have ripped up the handbook of any boxing trainer - hands up, protect yourself, lead with a jab - as raw emotion blinded him. It was a recipe for disaster, in just the third round of a scheduled 12.
Worse yet, it was the second time this happened in a few months. Each time with a world championship dangling precariously, Bellew's preconceived game-plan had vanished in a puff of hot smoke as his blood boiled with rage.
"Ilunga Makabu; I'm fighting the most dangerous cruiserweight in the world and you don't go in the water without getting wet," Bellew exclusively told Sky Sports. "Everything went to plan except a crazy 10 seconds where he made me do a somersault, then roll over onto my back.
"The BJ Flores fight - I'm sorry I didn't listen to my coach because I could have made it easier. But I'll tell you something; I couldn't have made it any more exciting."
I don't know what I'm going to do, so neither does he. I know that frightens him because it frightens me.
Flattening Makabu at Goodison Park, the football ground where a blue-clad Bellew had experienced every emotion since childhood, then crashing Flores to the canvas completed a 2016 that may have established him as Britain's most thrill-seeking world champion. The excitement on show, he freely admits, comes from a dark place.
There are warning signs ahead for David Haye, who incites the same ill feeling inside of Bellew that has previously been the catalyst for the Liverpudlian's finest in-ring moments.
"I'm unpredictable - I don't know what I'm going to do, so neither does he," the WBC cruiserweight champion said ahead of his heavyweight debut this Saturday, live on Sky Sports Box Office.
"I know that frightens him because it frightens me. If I don't know what I'm going to do, how does this clown know? He doesn't know how to take me."
It is often said that boxing is a thinking man's game and the methodology devised by Bellew's trainer, Dave Coldwell, to topple Haye promises to be fascinating. But there is a clear trend in Bellew's career where his best victories have come when visceral rage engulfs him - think the Nathan Cleverly rematch, even before 2016's shoot-outs with Makabu and Flores.
"I'm fighting because I actually love having a fight," he says matter-of-factly, and the honesty is written all over his face.
"I won't lie about the 12 weeks of graft away from my family - I hate that. But there's a screw loose in my head because I don't know what sort of a person enjoys walking to the ring and having a fight.
"That's the part that makes me buzz. I won't miss the 12 weeks of graft, I won't miss phoning Eddie Hearn every few days, but I love fighting to the core so I'll miss it."
There's a screw loose in my head because I don't know what sort of a person enjoys walking to the ring and having a fight.
Such love for turning the noble art into a ballet of brutality is what Bellew believes separates him from upcoming opponent Haye. While one man endured training in Yorkshire, the other enjoyed tanning in Miami - or so Bellew insists. He is banking on his ingrained toughness to prevail over Haye's when the lactic acid builds, and the muscles tire.
"Everybody has got a plan until they get hit. I'm going in with an elite-level, world-class fighter. So we can plan as much as we want, but it ain't going to go that way on the night.
"What we can do; we can anticipate the things he's going to do, we can study him, we can watch the moves that he makes. He will replicate them. No matter what happens, a fighter will always revert to type and do what they've done in their whole career. He will do that.
"I look as far back as his fight with Lolenga Mock. The Monte Barrett fight, he panicked and got wobbled for the first time. The Wladimir Klitschko fight was another version of him.
"Everyone thinks 'David Haye is so good, he took Klitschko's punches flush'. No he didn't! He ran. He knew the excuse that he was going to use before the last bell even rang."
He ran. He knew the excuse that he was going to use before the last bell even rang.
Picking holes in Haye's talents is a task that Bellew concedes is too complicated, but he insists that his London rival has character flaws that will cost him Saturday's fight.
Tactics? "To punch him in the face as hard as I possibly can, and to do it as many times as I possibly can." It's a reckless path but it has led Bellew to triumph before.
Watch David Haye vs Tony Bellew at The O2 on March 4, live on Sky Sports Box Office. Book the event online here or via your Sky remote.
