With ‘one-percent chance’ of returning to football, Le’Veon Bell looks to ‘prove people wrong’ in boxing match vs. Uriah Hall

Not long after his right hand dispatched Adrian Peterson in devastating fashion, Le’Veon Bell was presented with a seemingly blockbuster proposition.

As his professional boxing debut beckoned, Bell was offered the chance to face off with another former NFL great who had also begun a new career in the squared circle: Frank Gore.

Bell didn’t want a bout with Gore, though. He relished the opportunity to prove just how serious he was about making a career in boxing. He wanted a real fighter.

He got one in longtime UFC fighter Uriah “Prime Time” Hall, who will toe the line with Bell on Saturday at the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona, as part of the Jake Paul-Anderson Silva pay-per-view undercard.

“They asked did I want to fight Frank Gore on the show and I said no,” Bell told NFL.com on Wednesday. “I said I don’t want to fight anymore running backs, because honestly, I don’t feel like – and this is no disrespect to Frank Gore or any other running back – I don’t feel like those guys are on my skill level when it comes to boxing because they can’t make me go to the space that I can go to.”

Where Bell, 30, is going to is a four-round bout contracted at 195 pounds against a ferocious striker in Hall, 38, who was a perennial top-15 UFC middleweight and posted a 17-11 career mixed-martial-arts record with 13 knockout wins.

Where Bell was for the last decade was the NFL, playing for five teams and rushing for 6,554 yards and 42 touchdowns. Bell played for the New York Jets, the Kansas City Chiefs and in 2021 for the two teams who happen to be playing Thursday on Prime Video – the Baltimore Ravens and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Of course, the majority of his career – and the height of it – was as a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

In five seasons with the Steelers, Bell emerged as one of the game’s best backs, a do-it-all dual threat who was thrice a Pro Bowl selection and twice a first-team All-Pro. Those days are gone, though.

Bell made it clear he was focusing solely on boxing earlier this year, and it’s apparent there’s little chance he’ll find his way back to the NFL – aside from a perfect opportunity.

“I feel like it’s a one-percent chance,” Bell said. “It would have to be playoffs, and then like I got a starting job and it’s for a contending team – I have a chance win a Super Bowl. That’d literally be the only chance.”

As Bell played what are likely his final downs for the Ravens and Buccaneers in 2021, boxing had already replaced football as his passion. He began boxing as an offseason workout during the heyday of his playing days as a means to stay in shape and increase his stamina. As time went on and he got more seasoned in the sport, boxing took a hold.

“I started liking it, even more and more, so it became just not an offseason thing, but I started going in during season,” Bell recalled. “I started loving it even more. Then it had been offseason and during the season, but it’s like all right now, I don’t even know if I, I don’t want to play football no more. I think I do want to box.

“I just fell in love with the sport over the course of me doing it and I felt me getting better and gaining more confidence as I kept going. I think once I had that moment when I started sparring other opponents and I started seeing how good I actually was in the ring, I made the decision that I wanted to box.”

As the 2021 season was kicking off, Bell was more entrenched in boxing, but eventually Baltimore came calling, and then Tampa.

“I think that’s kinda where I was right in that position where I want to box. And I still was playing football a little bit here and there, but it’s like, that’s what kinda was slowing me down,” Bell said. “I felt like football was slowing me down in that moment. I finished that football season, all the way up to February. And since February of 2022, I’ve been boxing nonstop.”

According to Bell, he’s received interest from NFL clubs this year, but it has yet to dissuade him from his focus on boxing.

“During the season, I’ve been getting calls,” Bell said. “During the season so far, at the beginning of the season, asking me to come on [their] team, and I’ve just been declining, because I’ve been trying to take this boxing seriously.”

Hall enters Saturday as a substantial favorite. However, a prevailing reason Bell didn’t hesitate to take on the bout was his desire to prove just how serious he is about his new endeavor — and because of the opportunities that lie ahead should he emerge victorious.

“At that time, I don’t think anyone understood how serious I was taking this,” Bell said of when he accepted the Hall fight. “I’m dead-ass serious.”

Admittedly, Bell is still getting used to the boxing world. He’s trained at a variety of gyms and also trains at a home gym. And, in this universe, there is no Mike Tomlin or John Harbaugh; he’s had to assemble his own team. On Saturday night, it will be Vince Ruiz (Mayweather Boxing and Fitness), David Alcidez (Cutman Boxing), Andrew Stafford (Staff Boxing) and James Wedderburn (Mayweather Boxing and Fitness) who are in his corner, rather than longtime assistants or teammates he’s known for seasons.

“It’s different,” Bell said. “The sport that I came from is football: The team is the team. You get drafted, you kinda got everything put in place. In boxing, you gotta find everybody. Who can you trust, [who can] you get a relationship with? I feel like my team has been great.”

Bell scored a fifth-round knockout in his exhibition against Peterson on Sept 10. He offers no flamboyant predictions for Saturday night, though, just extreme confidence.

“I’m not promising a knockout, but I’m also not saying I’m not going to knock him out either,” he said. “If he gets a little too aggressive, he overextends, he has his hands down, whatever it may be, a knockout will happen.”

Confident he’s the better boxer, Bell sees a feeling-out process early before, “[I] impose my will.”

Just how much success Bell can achieve in this new arena will be much clearer on Saturday night, but he has the greatest of hopes.

“I want to be champion and show people that, I made first-team All-Pro in the NFL and I changed over sports to be the best pro that I am,” he said, “at one point I was the best, I reached the highest peak and it’s boxing.”

For a time, Bell was considered to be among the best running backs in the NFL, if not the best.

It’s been 42 weeks since Bell last played a down of football. It’s been just seven since he KO’d Peterson.

Bell’s moving on with his sights set on being triumphant in another world of sport, whether you believe in him or not.

“I know I’m a big-time underdog, a lot of people are really not giving me a shot,” Bell said, “so I’m ready to get in the ring and prove people wrong.”