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Boxing

05th Mar 2017

The exact same joke did the rounds during the Tony Bellew/David Haye love-in

What a turnaround

Darragh Murphy

On Monday, David Haye was facing a punishment for threatening to hospitalise Tony Bellew.

On Saturday, he came within a whisker of getting the shout to be Bellew’s best man for his upcoming wedding ceremony.

A war of words more vitriolic than that between Bellew and Haye hadn’t been seen for quite some time in the fight game but all the trash talk ended the instant the final bell rang in London’s O2 Arena.

As a towel came sailing to the canvas from Haye’s corner, Bellew knew that victory was his.

An unfortunate injury to Haye in the sixth round reduced him to a one-legged fighter for the remainder and although he admirably gutted it out until the 11th, it was always a big ask.

Immediately following the bout, Bellew rushed to embrace his foe and the hug was rightly praised online as every fight fan likes to see beef squashed and differences settled for good, left in the ring forever more.

But several viewers felt that the love-in between Bellew and Haye, who supposedly despised each other as recently as yesterday, went on for a bit too long.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwWkpM-4SGs

The men hugged and showered one another with praise throughout a lengthy interview with Sky Sports.

And it prompted the exact same joke on Twitter during the lovefest.

https://twitter.com/James_Buckley/status/838171888073375744

https://twitter.com/nffcwazza/status/838176006141788160

https://twitter.com/W2_Ell/status/838173509973061632

https://twitter.com/TomRufc99/status/838172832647561217

https://twitter.com/laurenanya/status/838172385916436480

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