“When I watch myself on tape, I think he’s s***! I look easy to hit, slow. I don’t look a big puncher. But I know I can beat him. He will not expect what I’m going to do. I want to tell you, but I can’t.” Tony Bellew with typical radical candour fused with confidence. For me, the punchline of an absorbing conversation the week before he challenges Oleksandr Uysk in Manchester for all the Cruiserweight belts. His physical appearance, Bellew’s often observed, has been one of his most potent weapons - he says he looks like a “fat boy,” and that inevitably lulls his opponents into a false sense of security. The subterfuge slips only when the first bell dings and the opponent finds himself in water way deeper than expected. David Haye was a strong favourite twice and wound up ending his career with back-to-back losses to Bellew. But the bookmakers have been unconvinced of the Liverpudlian’s ability to write another underdog story. The undefeated Ukrainian was 7/1 ON in most quarters at the time of writing. And, as Bellew told me, Usyk has more persuasive reasons to underestimate him - they’ve sparred, albeit a long time ago; “And if you’ve seen that sparring you’d have probably thought he’d beaten me up,” he told me with no hint of apprehension or self-doubt in his voice. Maybe that’s because Bellew says he gets beaten up “constantly” in sparring. He doesn’t like camps, finds it hard to get motivated. This one has gone well though - not that he has any intention of banging on about ‘the usual best camp ever stuff.” But he said 11 days out he weighed four pounds off the Cruiserweight limit and even had the hint of a six-pack. He was leaner than ever before and had unprecedented muscle mass. Not bad for a 35-year-old man who’s been trading up at heavyweight for the past couple of years. Would the appearance subterfuge tactic be ruined though? No, he assured me, Usyk would look much better on the scales! Still a good camp for Bellew has again involved being beaten up a bit, but his mood is growing as fight night looms; “The fight is my favourite part.” Not that he expected to be here. He thought he was done; “I only fought David (Haye) again because I gave him my word. But when Usyk called me out, I spoke to Eddie and said I’d do it if all the belts were on the line. I’ve been studying this game since I was 10 years old. This was my dream (to be undisputed). There’s nothing else for me to do after this.”