by James Slater – David Haye and his team can rest easy with regards to his upcoming fight with Nikolai Valuev. At one point, due to the intended actions of former WBA heavyweight champion John Ruiz, it looked as though there would be a good chance Haye would see his third fight in a row fall apart, and have to sit and watch “The Quiet Man” face the current WBA belt holder instead of him.
Ruiz, who has a position as the WBA’s mandatory challenger at heavyweight, made it clear he would not sit idle and allow “The Hayemaker” to fight the 7-foot Russian giant ahead of him. However, according to BBC news, the Valuev-Haye fight is to go ahead as originally planned because Ruiz has agreed to step aside. So Haye, who pulled out of two fights with the Klitschko brothers, firstly Wladimir and then Vitali, will at last get to fight for a world heavyweight belt this year.
“There’s no problem with the Valuev-Haye bout, everything has been sorted,” Valuev’s manager, Chris Meyer said. “We have struck a deal with Team Ruiz to step aside. Our attorneys are just putting it in writing. Once this contract has been signed, we will submit the necessary papers to the WBA by the end of this week..”
Thus speculation of yet another scrapped fight in the agonisingly slow heavyweight career of David Haye ends. Fans, many of whom have already let their impatience with Haye’s heavyweight adventure be known, could not have tolerated another let down.
According to the BBC article, this latest news means the fight will in all likelihood be one that is sanctioned by the WBA for the title. There hade been some talk that maybe the fight would go ahead, but as a non-title bout. Haye now has in his sights the opportunity to fulfil a dream he has had since he was a small boy. No venue has been announced yet, but the fight will go ahead in Germany on November 7th.
By fight time, both men will have been out for a considerable amount of time – Haye since last November, Valuev since last December. How much a factor ring rust will be for one or both men remains to be seen.
As for Ruiz, who has lost two very closely fought and somewhat debatable decision losses to Valuev, it is thought he will box against an as yet unknown opponent on November’s under-card. Most likely, though not yet confirmed officially, Ruiz would then get first crack at the headlining fight’s winner.