A heavily muscled former two division world champion David “Hayemaker” Haye (26-2, 24 KOs) weighed in today for his contest on Saturday night against Mark De Mori (30-1-2, 26 KOs). Haye weighed in at 227.2lbs, whereas De Mori came in considerably higher at 243.5 pounds. This means De Mori will have close to a 20-pound weight advantage over the 35-year-old Haye.
Whether this will help De Mori is another matter altogether. Haye has shown the ability in the past to defeat much heavier fighters than himself at heavyweight. In 2012, Haye was outweighed by 37lbs by Dereck Chisora, and yet he was still able to stop Chisora in the 5th. Compared to some of his past fights, De Mori looked kind of flabby. I am not sure if he didn’t take the training seriously or what. De Mori does not look like he’s at his best right now.
Haye was outweighed by 43lbs in his fight against Audley Harrison in 2010, and Haye stopped him in the third round. In most significant win at heavyweight, Haye was outweighed by 99lbs by 7-foot WBA champion Nikolay Valiev in 2009. Haye won the fight by a 12 round decision.
While it’s true that Valuev, Harrison and Chisora weren’t the best heavyweights on the planet, they still had weight going for them against Haye, but it didn’t help them.
Haye is hoping to pick up an impressive win over De Mori to use that as a springboard to get big money fights against the likes of Anthony Joshua, Deontay Wilder, Tyson Fury and Wladimir Klitschko. Haye has not fought in over three and a half years, and it’s unclear why he’s coming back now after this much time out of the ring. Some boxing fans believe that Haye is broke and badly in need of money. It’s unknown whether that’s the case.
Haye made a small fortune during his career, and it is difficult to imagine him having spent it all in just three and a half years. Whatever the reason for Haye’s comeback, he’s going to have a tough time once he starts fighting the cream of the heavyweight division. De Mori is definitely not among the very best in the division.
De Mori is more of a bottom rung fringe contender, who was given a very generous ranking by the World Boxing Association in putting him at the No.10 spot in their rankings. However, it’s pretty common for the different sanctioning bodies to rank less than high quality fighters in their rankings. It was just smart on Haye’s part to spot De Mori and realize that he can beat this guy without even having to take a tune-up to do it.
Haye’s weight of 227 is 17 pounds more than he weighed in his last three fights of his career. This can be either a positive or a negative for him. The extra weight could help him punch with the bigger De Mori without being banged around the ring by the heavier fighter. However, Haye could fade quickly if he’s unable to score a fast knockout.
