“Haye is a little, inexperienced kid,” -Wladimir Klitschko
Davey Haye told the boxing world he was going to rid the heavyweight division of the boring, robotic Klitschkos, and be the new star of boxing. He said he’d beat them both easy…
“The Hayemaker doesn’t lie.”
“I can’t wait to go up to the heavyweight division and knock that bum (Wladimir) out.”
“I’m taking this fight to save boxing. I’m doing this for Jack Dempsey, Rocky Marciano, Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier and all the other great, smaller heavyweights of the past.”
“I feel as though I’ve been sent by all the great heavyweights of yesteryear to clean up and save the heavyweight division.”
“I’m a man on a mission to save boxing from this Eastern European invasion of Ivan Drago clones. The clean-up operation starts with Wladimir on June 20.”
“I’m so pleased we’ve finally managed to get this fight on.”
“Klitschko’s last opponents were cowards and I will knock him out and take his belts back to London. I guarantee I’ll knock him out in spectacular fashion. I’m his worst nightmare. Klitschko will be one of my easiest fights.”
“That’s not all, I will also go and get Vitali’s belt. None of them can stop me. The new world heavyweight champion will soon be David Haye.”
“I’ll be undefeated champion in quick time.”
“I do not lie. There’s nothing they can do. I don’t care how big they are. The bigger they are the harder they fall. I’m coming to get all of you. All of you. You better run. The Hayemaker prevails every time.”
As it turns out, Davey Haye wasn’t telling the truth. My theory for what really happened here is Haye failed to intimidate WBO/IBF champ Klitschko with all the fantasy confident talk. Eventually reality set in and the truth dawned on the immature Haye about what he was up against. He saw the look of death in Wladimir’s eyes at the press conferences, he heard the stern vehemence in his voice, promising to punish and mutilate Haye for all the disrespect. Haye got cold feet and pulled out of the June 20 date with Wladimir with the supposed back injury.
Then WBC champ Vitali Klitschko offered Haye another crack at the title for September. Haye pretended like he wanted the fight, negotiations proceeded. Then suddenly, Haye faked his way out again, taking an offer from Nikolay Valuev, Don King and Wilfried Sauerland.
Aside from Mike Tyson in his worst days, I have never seen such blatant and appalling behavior by a man being offered a chance at the richest, most prestigious title in all of sport. A double-talking, time wasting, posturing phony, Haye has shown himself to be a disgrace to the sport of boxing.
Haye can complain now all he wants about the “slave” contract, but as far back as February, he said everything was agreed on, yet he wouldn’t sign till over a month later.
As managing director of Klitschko Management Group, Bernd Boente has had to deal with Haye’s nonsense for six months and is understandably annoyed. “First of all, I feel sorry for the team of the Commerzbank-Arena and for the boxing fans in the Frankfurt region. We will try to set up another Klitschko fight in this wonderful arena as soon as possible. Also for us, the cancellation was very surprising as we got informed about it through the media. Haye’s manager, Adam Booth, did not even have the courage to give me a call personally and tell me about their decision – for me a sign of his inexistent class. Background of the pull-out are definitely the bad pay-per-view-TV figures of BSkyB in England.”
“The last fights of Ricky Hatton and new English star Amir Khan (last weekend against Andreas Kotelnik) both had very poor sales on TV (Khan vs. Kotelnik less than 30,000 viewers). It was Haye’s desire to base his purse on the British TV earnings.”
“Haye and his manager, whose home base is in the Turkish part of Cyprus for fiscal reasons, seem to have realized all of a sudden, that we have a global economic depression and English boxing fans are not that easily willing to pay 15 pounds for a bout. All the excuses of adhesion contracts are complete rubbish as Haye had already signed the same contract for the fight against Wladimir in June, which also contained a usual rematch clause and a pure Klitschko option. And for that fight he also pulled out. By the way, Vitali and myself attended Haye’s last fight against Monte Barrett at the O2 Arena in London. There were possibly 6.000 fans in a 20.000 seat arena. The guy is not a big draw in England at all. We were always surprised that he expected to get 2.7 million pounds out of the English pay-per-view sales for a fight against Vitali or Wladimir,” Böente continued.
Wladimir Klitschko added, “During the negotiations for my June fight, we realized quickly that Haye and Booth are very unprofessional. Booth might be a good trainer but as a manager he is simply incompetent. David always had a big mouth and tried to offend us with ridiculous self-made t-shirts. But when it comes up to step into the ring and show what he’s got, he runs away. He even admits that fighting Valuev is the easier way. For me Haye is a little, inexperienced kid who is afraid of his own courage. Doubtless, my brother would have knocked him out within the first four rounds.”
Haye’s actions and behavior are unbecoming of a challenger wishing to receive an opportunity to fight for the world heavyweight championship, as one British boxing fan named Craig Hyman stated:
“I feel the way David Haye conducts himself out of the ring, especially towards the Klitschkos, is a disgrace. To have an advert put in a magazine of him holding a decapitated head of Wladimir is just childish and wrong. I think David’s ego and arrogance have got the better of him. Lessons will be learned when he is defeated by one of the Klitschkos, who I might add act in a courteous, mature and respectable manner. I cannot support a boxer who conducts himself like Haye does. To be confident is great and reassuring but to be arrogant is demeaning and unattractive. Act like a gentleman, be respectful to others and earn the right to fight for the heavyweight title. Then maybe you will get what you crave…oh and a few more fans!