David Haye’s next fight had been long awaited with nearly a year out of the ring since his last fight with Monte Barrett. After disappointment that the Klitschko fights couldn’t go ahead, another World Title shot with the biggest heavyweight of all time was mouth watering! Haye had only previously had 2 fights in the heavyweight division having become the undisputed cruiserweight champion, and there was some uncertainty about how he would cope against the much larger fighters (Haye being a “small” 6′3″ and about 220 lbs!!!). The now mammoth gap in height and weight that he was giving away (9 inches and 100 lbs) made it a true “David vs Goliath” event!

I was hoping to attend the event and support Haye, but I recently got married and knew that I would be sunning myself in Mexico when the fight took place. Thankfully my wife knew what she was getting into when she married me, and had already agreed to find a sports bar showing this fight and the Cotto vs Pacquiao fight during our honeymoon! On the day of the fight we had terrible weather. Hurricane Ida was approaching and we had some torrential rain. After carefully finding a bar just 10 minutes drive from our hotel, we went outside to see cars almost completely submerged by rain water, with thunder and lightning so loud a passer by screamed in terror hitting the deck for saftey! Amusing, but not looking good for the fight…

We eventually found a taxi driver that was prepared to aqua plane through the water, and we made it to the bar in good time. The NFL was playing on the TV’s, and I asked if they were going to show the Haye fight. Normally in the past I have had to explain who David Haye was, but this time (even in Mexico) they knew exactly who I was talking about. I guess all that publicity in the build up to the Wladimir Klitschko fight really increased his profile! The signal was a bit intermittent due to the weather but at least I could watch it! So long as we didn’t lose reception completely I was happy. The bar didn’t seem that busy but when Haye appeared on screen there were cheers in the bar, seemingly lots of fans were hidden away.

The fight itself was fascinating. Haye clearly had a gameplan to use his speed and remain elusive, which was a wise decision as trying to grapple with a 300 lbs “beast” would definitely have been draining and going toe to toe could also have been disastrous. I thought Haye did a good job of moving in and out of range, and he was never really hit cleanly by Valuev throughout the whole fight. Apparently Haye injured his right hand early in the fight (round 2 or 3) as a result of hitting Valuev square on the head, which Haye later compared to hitting a large brick! This may have explained why the punch numbers dropped, and although Haye was doing a good job of remaining elusive I was concerned that he wasn’t throwing enough to win the rounds convincingly. Although at times Valuev looked like the mummy slowly plodding around the ring, he was stalking Haye and he was the current champion. Would the judges think that Haye was fighting too negatively to win the rounds? In round 12 Haye landed a few good 1-2 combinations to the head of Valuev, and 2 minutes into the round he caught him with a left hook that wobbled the giant. At this point I lost my “British composure”, having remained relatively calm until this point I suddenly jumped up and shouted “f**king finish him!!!” much to the bemusement of some of the other punters! Valuev seemed to recover quickly however, and the fight was down to the judges. This is what I was dreading. Could Haye win the judges in Germany? Had he done enough for a clear victory? When the results were called and the first score was 114-114, I thought it was either going to be a draw or they were going to deny Haye his victory. However when the announced Haye as the “new heavyweight champion of the world” the bar erupted! He had done it!

The next fight for Haye seems like it’s going to be John Ruiz, which will be a very different gameplan to the Valuev fight. I think we can expect another KO for that! Listening to the American commentators, they were very impressed with Haye saying that he had a good gameplan and that he remained disciplined throughout the fight. Clearly he wasn’t the bully or the slugger that they were expecting, and he’s definitely a threat to the Klitschko’s whether they are prepared to admit it or not.