Tony Bellew

Bio

Right then. Tony Bellew is one of the very few British fighters who got exactly the career he said he was going to get, and then walked away at the moment he said he would. Liverpool through and through, loud with it, and a great deal cleverer than the shouting ever suggested.

He won the WBC cruiserweight world title at Goodison Park in May 2016, stopping Ilunga Makabu in the third round in front of his own people on the ground where he had watched Everton since he was a boy. If you know, you know — that night meant more to him than any belt ever could.

Then came the part nobody saw coming. Bellew moved up to heavyweight to fight David Haye, a man who had spent months telling anybody who would listen that he would hurt him badly, and stopped him in eleven rounds at the O2 in March 2017. He did it again in five in the rematch. Two fights, two stoppages, and a rivalry settled as comprehensively as any in modern British boxing.

His last night was against Oleksandr Usyk in Manchester in November 2018 for the undisputed cruiserweight championship. Bellew boxed brilliantly for seven rounds and was genuinely ahead on two cards before Usyk found the left hand in the eighth. He retired there and then, at 30-3-1, and he has never once hinted at a comeback.

Since then he has become one of the best analysts on British television. He is blunt, he is occasionally wrong, and he is never boring — and when he tells a fighter something they do not want to hear, it is usually worth listening to.