Maybe he should move to Cruiserweight AND go to America for top class sparring. It's an unbeatable combination.
This thread is proof of the need for a weight class between l heavy and cruiser. The jump from 175 to 200lbs is fookin mental. There should be 8 weight classes from bantam to heavy - all the little 4lbs jumps in the lower weights are just silly. As for the divisions bellow bantam well if you are a fully grown man in the modern age and weigh less than 120lbs you need to find another line of work
Are you ****ing stupid or something...? Of course Tony Bellew is not going to have the physique of a CW at 175, because guess what..? 175 is 25 lbs less than 200 pounds. Physiologically, if you lose 25lbs in muscle your physique will look smaller. If Tony Bellew was allowed to live and train like David Haye in camp, and not forced to be paranoid over calories and micro nutrients, he would be a CW.
People are quick to shoot the idea down, but put a quality 25lbs on him (Think NOT a James Toney weight-gain) and he'd be built like a tank AND it'd benefit him much more (ie: not having to diet as hard or cut as much weight, more power in his shot, more time spent training on his skills than training to lose weight etc).
I disagree, Bellew says he makes the weight fine (I know he would say that) but I'm sure that if he gets beat at 175 then the "reason" given will be weight related. He was a HW as an amateur but if you didn't know that fact i don't think Bellew stands out from a lot of other fighters these days who are slightly tight at the weight. Its just how things are done at the moment and 2 stone is a massive jump to make unless you have to make it.
Bellew looks like he could do with a good meal, mate. Bellew with a 2 stone increase in weight = Scouse Tank.