Haye turning a few heads

David Haye has been turning a few heads in the past few days. I bumped into him in Las Vegas a week ago at the Calzaghe-Hopkins fight, where he did not remove his sunglasses and seemed to have a small group of women following hi around.
Then he bumped into Wladimir Klitschko back in London and he made an impression on the WBO and IBF heavyweight champion, even if it was not a particularly positive one.

It was while in the US that a press release was issued saying he had parted with his promoter, Frank Maloney, something that had been on the cards when Haye won his world cruiserweight title unification bout against Enzo Maccarinelli last month. Not that Maloney would be a bad promoter for Haye - with Ricky Hatton in his camp for the moment too, he could have had a claim for being the country's top promoter - but in Haye's position (WBC, WBA and WBO cruiserweight champion moving up to heavyweight) there is a big signing-on bonus to be had.

Haye and Adam Booth, his manager, were in Vegas for talks with Golden Boy. No talks have so far, apparently, been held with Frank Warren. But, despite being the trendy choice, would Golden Boy, or the United States, be a good fit right now?

Golden Boy undoubtedly have a lot of money and great TV connections in the US, ensuring Haye would get spots on HBO. But the bout with Maccarinelli and the support that has followed Ricky Hatton and Joe Calzaghe to the US should have encouraged him that he should be building his support in the UK. There were nearly 20,000 people who paid top dollar to be at that fight, which started at after 2am - what other sport could command that sort of support?

And Golden Boy have no track record in the heavyweights. While HBO has Klitschko, who is promoted by his own K2 company, in their camp, Haye needs to be somewhere where he can get the opponents he needs. Ruslan Chagaev, the WBA champion, is with Klaus-Peter Kohl, Nikolay Valuev, who faces Chagaev next month, is promoted by Wilfried Sauerland and Don King, while King also has a stake, along with Duva Boxing, in Samuel Peter, the WBC champion, who was also at the Calzaghe fight.

Haye is looking directly at the top, but Klitschko has a full dance card this year, with two mandatories to take care of. In July, in Hamburg, he faces Tony Thompson, of the US, in Hamburg, and, providing he wins, he has a much more daunting prospect against Alexander Povetkin by the end of November.

"In Vegas everyone was asking when I'm fighting Klitschko," Haye said. "It's the fight everyone wants.
No one has even heard of Thompson and Povetkin, who ducked me in the amateurs by moving up to super-heavyweight. But these are the guys he's fighting and it's just a joke."

Klitschko met Haye at the weekend, when Klitschko was in London to help launch the Fight For Peace new headquarters in North Woolwich. Klitschko barely knew who Haye was and found him quite rude, calling him "nuts".

"He was so loud that I could have heard his voice overseas," Klitschko said. "He's a nice guy but he's so excited about his career and moving up to the heavyweight division and winning all the titles.

"He's definitely got a good punch and is a great boxer but he's just so loud it's unbelievable. The one thing that he does have already, though, is that he's very self-confident. He has to have a couple of good fights at heavyweight and, after that, who knows?

"Maybe Great Britain is going to have the next undisputed heavyweight champion of the world – but only after I retire."

Comments

[Naidah]

Haye has the potential to inject some excitement into the heavyweight division, the last fights I saw in this particular weight category was Chagaev v Skelton which was severely lacking in class to be perfectly honest. However, I do think that Wladimir Klitschko came out of this exchange quite well, he's real credit to the sport.