There is still a strong lingering sillage in the aftermath of a highly acclaimed bout between fierce rivals David Haye and Tony Bellew, which followed a series of heated verbal exchanges and provocative social media posts.

And, it is the opinion of promoter Eddie Hearn, that Haye now needs to enact revenge over Bellew in order to stake a serious claim for his status as “legendary” in the world of boxing.

Haye dreams of one day challenging for Anthony Joshua’s title, but the Brit’s bold aspirations suffered a blow when he was felled by Tony Bellew last month in an epic contest that saw him damage his Achilles.

Recovering from the injury, the Hayemaker has already indicated that a rematch is within his sights, and Bellew’s spokesperson Hearn weighed in during an exclusive with Sky Sports, saying: "Never say never, especially in the heavyweight division.

"AJ and Haye is completely dead at the moment. The only fight for Haye is Tony Bellew.

"I have listened to his social media stuff, he's got aspirations of challenging for the world heavyweight title. I think he's good enough to go on and do that, but he just got stopped by Bellew. Injury or no injury, whatever, he lost the fight.

"The only fight for Haye is Bellew. Bellew has five or six options. We understand the demand for Haye-Bellew II and it's certainly something that we would look at."

On the flip side, Hearn sees a proposed rematch to have some setbacks, after Bellew had to meet a series of demands before agreeing to the first bout between the pair.

"Don't forget in that first fight, Bellew had to agree to a lot of things that he didn't want to, in order to get the opportunity, so that's probably going to be the biggest stumbling block," Hearn added.

"That seed is in his mind now, that now he gets those pluses out of the fight. But Tony understands it's a big fight. Tony has really built his career on having fights that the public want to see, so he's more than willing to do that next.

"He does talk about retiring, but I'm going to dangle so many fishes in front of him that I think that's impossible. [I expect] a shot at the world heavyweight title, or the David Haye rematch."

Bellew, the current WBC cruiserweight champion, meanwhile, has his sights set on either one of WBC champion Deontay Wilder or WBO forerunner Joseph Parker, but has ruled out facing Dillian White in the next round.

Do you agree with Eddie Hearn’s suggestion that David Haye’s dream is dead and that he would need to overcome Tony Bellew to revive it? Have your say in the comments section below.