by James Slater – Congratulations must go out to 29-year-old David “The Hayemaker” Haye today. The new WBA heavyweight champion, Haye boxed a most disciplined and intelligent fight last night in Germany, as he took a close, perhaps somewhat debatable majority decision over “The Russian Giant,” Nikolai Valuev (116-112, 116-112 and 114-114)
Becoming the first British “world” heavyweight champion since the days of the great Lennox Lewis, and only the second man in history to have reigned at both cruiserweight and heavyweight, Haye can now look ahead to some huge paydays and, hopefully, some exciting nights.
For although Haye, who was giving away around 100-pounds in weight, deserves much credit for the way he went to Germany and took the 36-year-old’s belt, the fight was not very exciting at all. Despite talking up the way he’d go out and look to KO the 7’2″ behemoth, Haye instead was largely cautious. Nobody is blaming him for this, but the fact is the fight was at times a dull one. Valuev was made to look slower than ever by the in-and-out tactics employed by Haye, and the challenger was never really hurt..
Some of the rounds were mightily tough to score, because Valuev was the man marching forward but he wasn’t landing much, and Haye was the man who was almost constantly on the back foot, and at times he wasn’t doing too much himself. When Haye did unleash the odd right hand or left hook to the head, however, “The Hayemaker” landed flush and had the WBA champ shaking his head in defiance.
There were virtually no clinches in the fight, and Valuev was unable to impose his weight and strength on the smaller man. Valuev’s left jab, his best weapon, did score for him at times, but at others it fell hopelessly short. The early rounds, on my card at least, belonged to Haye, as did all the later rounds apart from the 10th; while Valuev upped his workrate in some of the middle rounds. Haye’s bursts of head punches, although we could have done to have seen more for an exciting fight, worked to a tee, and his occasional shots to the body scored for him also.
On a rare occasion, the usually lumbering Russian scored with a surprisingly fast punch, as he did in the 7th-round, when he landed a nice right hand counter to the head, and as he did in the 11th, when he got home with a decent left hook to his challenger’s head. But otherwise Valuev looked perhaps slower than ever.
The only real drama came in the final round, as Haye, finally going for the stoppage with gusto, rocked and wobbled Valuev with a hard left hook to the jaw. His legs doing a jig, the defending champion was visibly hurt, and it was quite alarming to see. Also, the success Haye had begged the question: what would have happened had he opened up like this earlier, instead of reigning himself in?
I had the fight as a three point win for Haye, but there could well be some moans and groans over this one. Jim Watt and Nicky Piper, both working for Sky Sports, for example, had Valuev winning, and whilst awaiting the scorecards there couldn’t have been too many people who were sure of the way the judges had seen the action. I’m not suggesting we need or want a rematch, but there certainly are some people who felt Valuev did enough to win.
But Haye can celebrate, and he will now look ahead to defending his new title. One worry for Haye might be his right hand, which he said post-fight he may have broken. Hopefully the hand is fine and there will be no layoff like the one Haye had had before last night’s fight. A slightly marked up WBA champion said he’d very much like to defend against mandatory challenger John Ruiz next, hopefully in London, perhaps at The O2 arena.
When asked if he’d felt he’d won while awaiting the official verdict, Haye said he had been confident.
“He wasn’t hitting me,” Haye said. “So as long as you’re not getting hit [you know you’re winning.] His head is solid! Like a brick wall. I’m pretty sure my hand is broke, but that’s the price you have to pay [to win the title.] I’ve gotta get this hand checked out. I’d love to fight John Ruiz, maybe at The O2.”
So, once again congratulations must go out to Haye, who backed up his considerable boasting by winning, if not KO’ing, Nikolai Valuev. Let’s hope, though, that “The Hayemaker” can somehow make the fight with Ruiz an exciting one. No easy task, that.