Former WBA heavyweight champion David Haye’s scheduled fight with #8 WBC Manuel Charr (23-1, 13 KO’s) is now off after Haye sustained an injury to his hand that will make it necessary for him to rest up so that it can heal. As for Haye’s scheduled fight against Charr on June 29th in Manchester, it’s now off. No word whether Haye wants to still fight Charr once the injury heals.
Haye said to the BBC “I apologize to Manuel Charr and everybody involved in the promotion, but most of all I want to say sorry to the thousands of fans who bought tickets to the fight.”
Haye, 32, has been out of the ring since July last year when he defeated domestic fighter Dereck Chisora by an easy 5th round TKO. The fight too easy and Haye got little out of it.
Haye has now been for a year, and he says the long layoffs don’t hurt him, but in looking at this injury it could be that his body is giving him a signal that the time off isn’t a good thing.
This was supposed to be a fight that would help push Haye up the rankings so that he could get another crack at IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko. Haye already fought Wladimir two years ago was easily beaten in one of Wladimir’s most one-sided fights of his career. Haye has only fought once since then in beating Chisora.
With the hand injury, Haye plans on taking a month off to wait until it heals before he resumes training and tries to figure out where he goes from there. It’s interesting that Haye isn’t telling Charr that he plans on still fighting him, and you have to wonder just a little why Haye isn’t trying to reschedule the fight. Is there someone else Haye prefers to fight instead of Charr? Did he see something in Charr’s previous fights that has turned him off towards the fight? Who knows? One thing is for sure, Charr will want to fight Haye once his hand is healed, but it’s unclear if Haye wants to fight him now.