By Robert Cookson – THIS Saturday (November 7) Nikolay Valuev defends his WBA Heavyweight Championship against Britain’s David Haye in Germany. Haye has bad-mouthed his way to a title shot. First taunting the brothers’ Klitschko mercilessly, including wearing a tee-shirt adorned with a picture of him holding up their severed heads. Fights with both the Kiltschko’s fell through, Haye being the factor on each occasion. First against Wladimir, through a back injury Haye sustained in training and secondly, against Vitali, as Haye pulled out of negotiations at the last minute to take on ‘The Beast From The East..’
The Brit has continued his name-calling, bad-taste, tirades in the build up to this fight moving his attention to the seven-footer from Saint Petersburg, Russia. He decapitated a life-size cardboard Valuev in one press conference and called the Russian everything from a ‘freak show’ to just plain ‘smelly.’
Haye defends himself by saying that he has always talked in this way but has always backed it up, putting aside a TKO setback to Carl Thompson in 2004. In fairness to Haye he usually does back up his words. Of his 22 wins only Ismail Abdoul has gone the distance, and that was only because David wanted him to.
Valuev has a completely different temperament. He has sat through Haye’s outbursts in a silent and dignified way and claims that the big punching Brit hasn’t got under his skin. He has a game plan and he intends to stick to it. If true, and the Russian can stick to it, that represents a problem for Haye who is banking on riling the Russian sufficiently in order to draw him into throwing wild punches where Haye’s unquestionable punching power and speed can be put to its best use with counters.
Haye claims that Valuev is meeting a good fighter on the way up, in contrast to many of his other opponents, such as Evander Holyfield, who were well past their sell-by date. Some of that may well be true. In Valuev’s career he has racked up a slate of 50 wins (34 by KO) with just a solitary defeat, against Ruslan Chagaev, in a career spent entirely at heavyweight. In that career he has beaten Holyfield, John Ruiz, Jameel McCline and Monte Barrett. Holyfield was a shell of his former self but still managed to push the big Russian close, some observers even feeling the veteran won it, and the other names are hardly ones to shout about. Compare them with former cruiserweight world champion’s only two heavyweight conquests, Thomasz Bonin and Barrett and it doesn’t look too bad.
For all his bluster, Haye is extremely unproven at heavyweight. He impressively blew out Bonin in a round and had an up-and-down thriller with Barrett, prevailing in 5, however that’s as far as Haye’s heavyweight adventure has gone so far. Compared to Valuev’s long career at the weight it seems inexplicable that the British bookmakers have Haye an odds-on favourite.
So how does the fight go? Valuev does nothing special but does most things to a decent standard. He’s not that powerful and doesn’t exactly glide around the ring, but you’d hardly expect that from a man weighing over 300 pounds. Haye, on the other hand, has tremendous power, good skills and excellent speed. If all things were equal it would be hard to pick against Haye. However, as is so often the case, things are not equal.
Valuev is simply massive, and he may well outweigh Haye by around 80 pounds, possibly more. To put that into context, much has been made about the difficulties in moving from weight to weight but an entire weight class is usually separated by seven pounds or so. The Russian’s also not that bad. He’s basic and ponderous, but tough and persistent. He can be bamboozled by speed and movement but he’s never been seriously hurt and never come close to going down.
To win, Haye will be hoping his speed can get him in to land combinations and back out of harms way. Chagaev and, to a lesser extent, Holyfield have shown that’s the way to cause Valuev problems, but those two had attributes that Haye doesn’t. They had very good stamina and solid chins. David has neither. His chin is suspect and can only get more so against the monsters that reside at heavyweight. His stamina is certainly in question. He has gone 12 rounds once, but the pace was such that Haye probably got more tired on his ring walk. In his only loss, to Thompson, Haye came out blazing and fired himself into exhaustion before being rescued, completely spent, while still on his feet. In his last fight against Barrett, a fight Haye hit the deck as he has done several times before, Haye was blowing hard from the third round onwards.
With these fragilities and his lack of experience at the weight it seems difficult to pick Haye. Valuev will be leaning that massive frame down upon him at every opportunity and looking to make it a physical fight. His punches, while not overly fast or powerful, will certainly carry enough power to give Haye trouble.
I expect Haye to come out fairly quickly, but carefully – I don’t think this will be the gun-slinging fight the hype would have you beleive. He’ll want to test the Russians chin and see how it stands up, if he can get to Valuev then all bets are off. However, I don’t think he will. I expect Valuev will slowly and methodically wear Haye down. Haye will try his best, you have to when you fire your mouth off as much as he does, but he’ll find the task is just too great (not to mention too big).
By around the seventh round I expect to see Valuev in control, landing thudding jabs and trying with his over-hand right as Haye begins to come apart. After about eight or nine rounds it wouldn’t surprise me if Haye is rescued, by his corner or referee, after giving his best but finding out that size really does matter.