Sam_Parker
Contributor

Offline, last online: May 5 2008, 17:37 PM

I always find Don King funny. Distasteful at times, but always funny.
Robbed of his normal pursuits ie making money through promoting rich heavyweight fights, our Don has converted to the seniors tour. How King thought he would ever draw a massive pay-per-view buy rate with Roy Jones Junior and Felx Trinidad - two who perhaps should hang up the gloves, especially in the latter's case - is beyond me.
But help may be at hand for the heavyweight division.
David Haye's empahtic, brutal demolition of Welshman Enzo Maccarinelli at London's 02 arena in the small hours of Saturday morning (America's watching, folks) may in time prove pivotal to this once glorious division. A little glitter has come off the edges since the blue riband division was robbed of great fighters but if there is a man to put some shine into heavyweight boxing, it's David Haye.
I thought the broadcast of the Haye v Maccarinelli fight to the United States was particularly significant.
While there was no hint that the event was set up for Haye to win, to me a victory for the London-based fighter was the right time, right place.
How many heavyweights look, act and are as explosive in their punching as David Haye? In fact, how many heavyweights can you name?
Look at the list of fighters who now claim to be among the "elite" (I use that word loosely) at heayweight.
Wladimir Klitschko - not much personality, robotic, suspect to real power.
Samuel Peter - beatable, but possibly marketable
Vitali Klitschko - same as his brother, but possibly injury-prone

I could mention Ibragimov, Chagaev, Valuev et al but I can't see how they would add much to the point. Haye has every attribute a top heavyweight, with the exception of a chin able to withstand the shots of the big men. Even so, promoters like King must be licking their lips in anticipation. Haye seems to like it out in the States, beat a world-ranked congtender (Tomasz Bonin) in a round and is set up to be a talkshow star over there.
If - and it's still a big if - he can put together a run of victories, we could be looking at our first British heavyweight champion since Lennox Lewis, but with enough attitude to win over the most hardened of American fans.
The future is yours, David. Now prove you're good enough.




 

Have your say...

Note: To use the comments facility, you must first register using your email address. As a security measure, a validation link will then be sent to that email address. This is only once per email address. You must then use that email address each time you wish to comment on a story.

Email address you wish to use:

---

Your comment will be instantly published right here. WARNING: Any abuse of this system could result in users being held personally liable for any legal consequences.

Your Name

Your Location

Your email address
(Not for publication)

Comment(max. 4000 characters)