By Matthew Hurley: He’s brash, he’s exciting to watch and now that he’s entered the heavyweight ranks he’s potentially vulnerable. That vulnerability coupled with his hard-hitting, take-no-prisoners style has made David ‘The Hayemaker’ Haye a welcome addition to a division desperate for someone to shake things up.
The former undisputed cruiserweight champion, two fights into his heavyweight foray, is also one of the better trash talkers in the game. It’s a conceit that has either enthused or alienated boxing fans, and that’s just the way
David Haye wants it. He’s not a quiet man carrying a big stick. He’s a man so convinced of his abilities that he feels it warrants a big mouth and he knows that one of the countless things missing from this stale heavyweight era are sound bites that intrigue or enrage the boxing public. Haye understands that he is his best publicist and as long as he fights in a style embraced by the fan who leans more toward blood lust than technical precision he has the potential to not only straighten up the current heavyweight mess but also become a very big star.
Or, one powerful right hand from belt holder
Wladimir Klitschko could shut his mouth for good and end his dream of being the next Evander Holyfield. And, believe it or not,
David Haye is fine with that.
“(The fans) enjoy toe-to-toe slugfests,” he said recently in a Ring Magazine interview with Brian Doogan. “And I like to entertain and give the people what they want.”
As for what he sees for himself in the coming months Haye envisions a firefight with either Wladimir or his brother
Vitali Klitschko – eventually he’d like to do away with both of them. (It now looks as though it will be Wladimir first, possibly in June.) When the dust settles the loquacious fighter from London sees himself as the logical heir to the last great heavyweight, Lennox Lewis.
“Heavyweight boxing has been in the doldrums and it’s about time it got sprinkled with some stardust again,” he says. “Both America and Britain have been starved for a good domestic heavyweight since the Lennox Lewis-Evander Holyfield-Riddick Bowe era and my aim is to restore some of that luster that has been lost.”
It is Holyfield who Haye most readily identifies with. Both men conquered the cruiserweights before entering the heavyweight division and both were criticized by many as being undersized and viewed as eventual victims of the bigger men they would have to engage. Even when Holyfield beat the long odds stacked against him with successive victories over steadily improving competition until he annexed the title from Buster Douglas in 1990 he was still seen as a man holding onto the titles until Mike Tyson returned from a prison sentence to reclaim what was rightfully his.
Then Evander fought a fight for the ages against Riddick Bowe, losing his titles but finally gaining the respect of the boxing world with a Herculean effort against a man over twenty pounds heavier than he. Holyfield’s career trajectory would go up and down, reaching dizzying heights with his knockout of Tyson in 1996 along with several other significant victories until the wear and tear of being the smaller man and fighting with his heart on his sleeve finally caught up to him. Despite fighting on as a shell of his former self his legacy is secure. It’s a legacy
David Haye would like to approach.
