Gareth A Davies and Tony Bellew have disclosed the events that took place behind the scenes after their respective confrontations at the Anthony Joshua vs Jermaine Franklin fight.
During the fight, Davies tried to interview Conor Benn, who was present in the audience.
Benn has been caught up in a scandal since last year when he was unable to compete against Chris Eubank Jr due to failing two drug tests after testing positive for Clomiphene.
And as part of that process, Davies’ job on the radio network talkSPORT has been at the forefront-with the network questioning Benn’s conduct.
And given that Davis was representing TalkSPORT, it appears that this did not go down well. Benn declined to speak, hit the microphone, resulting in an intense standoff.
Clearly shaken a little by what had happened, Davies tried to downplay the incident live on air by claiming Benn ‘wasn’t aggressive.’
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But now that the dust has settled, Davies has given additional details regarding the incident.
In his comments to talkSPORT, he said: “I’ve never once said that I believe he’s a drugs cheat. But, he has had clomiphene in his system twice and I’ve spoken about that until I’m blue in the face, in fact I’m fed up of talking about it.
“We spoke off camera later as well and he said he wasn’t happy with me and he thought we were friends, but all I’m doing is my job.”
But that was not the only controversy of the night. Tony Bellew, the former cruiserweight champion, detailed his involvement in an altercation that occurred after Joshua’s victory over Franklin.
After the fight ended, Joshua and Franklin were involved in a heated altercation that almost turned physical. Bellew was present near the boxing ring as a member of DAZN’s broadcasting crew.
As per Bellew’s statement, the altercation started when Franklin’s coach seemed to accost Joshua during the scuffle that ensued after the fight. Security had to intervene and separate them.
Thereafter, outside the ring, Bellew had a confrontation with Franklin’s trainer Lorenzo Reynolds.
After the incident, this is what Bellew had to say: “You can’t have a trainer going for a boxer. So I said, ‘Hey lad what are you playing at?’ And he’s said something and I’ve said, ‘F— it, let’s do it then. I’ll f——- meet you with a right hand.”
“His mate apologized to me and I said ‘you can’t’. I didn’t want the trouble with him but I just said, ‘What are you doing?’ And he went, ‘What are you going to do?’
“I said, ‘What the f—- are you going to do’. So I’ve stepped down like ‘Let’s go.’. I stepped aside so I thought he was going to step to me and a right hand was going to meet him.”