By Joey Mills – For the first time since Lennox Lewis relinquished his title at the start of 2004, Britain has a world heavyweight boxing champion. Nothing more, nothing less. When David “Hayemaker” Haye took Nikolai Valuev’s WBA championship this past Saturday, it was not done with the grace and poise of Muhammad Ali or Larry Holmes. Nor was it some criminal, outside-the-rules display of “anti-boxing”, as some have labelled it. The British challenger merely out-landed, out-thought, and narrowly out-pointed the gargantuan champion.
Whatever your view of the Haye vs Valuev fight, it is now in the past. However it seems Haye’s next fight is cast in stone, at least as much as anything is in this fickle and oft-changing sport. David Haye must defend his strap against the World Boxing Association’s favourite fighter, John “The Quiet Man” Ruiz..
For a man with such an unassuming moniker, Ruiz draws more bile from the public than virtually any heavyweight of the last decade. He held the belt that Haye possesses with an iron grip over his five-year reign as champion (only interrupted by Roy Jones Jr’s rapid fire win/relinquish foray into the picture in 2003). Sadly for fight fans, an iron grip is also something he applies in the ring, with jab-and-grab tactics that serve to make Audley Harrison seem somewhat akin to Sonny Liston.
However for a fighter that is all wrong, John Ruiz actually seems very right for a first defence for Haye. The New Yorker has an impressive collection of scalps, including wins over Evander Holyfield, Hasim Rahman and Fres Oquendo. He is also a name fighter, with his long history with title, and infamously dreadful but effective fighting style raising his profile among industry followers.
This fight has a tremendous upside for the Adam Booth-trained champion. After his pragmatic approach in taking the title, Haye will be looking to impress. While it is true that Ruiz’s chin has stood up to plenty of scrutiny in recent years, the last opponent he faced with the same strain of concussive power as Haye was David Tua, who brutalised him in a round. With thirteen years of ring smarts gained fighting at the top level since then, I’m not saying that Ruiz will be taken as quickly, but strategically the fight doesn’t look good for him.
Haye displayed a previously unseen patience in his work on Saturday night, throwing punches on his terms, boxing crisply on the outside and picking his battles. Against Ruiz he would have nothing to fear on the strength front, as Ruiz isn’t a particularly fearsome physical presence. Nor does he carry much in the way of dynamite in his fists, as displayed by his laboured stoppage of the moderate Adnan Serin on the Haye/Valuev undercard.
Thus if Haye could use his speed to avoid the laborious clinching of Ruiz, he could open up the space to land multiple shots. With the sort of power “Hayemaker” carries into the ring, there isn’t many who could withstand his punches for a prolonged period, and I see Ruiz falling under the pressure. Of course this is in no way a certainty, Haye may find the veteran’s wile neutralises his immense natural ability, rendering him unable to find the challengers chin with any frequency.
If all goes to plan, a brutal knockout win will send David Haye’s star into supernova. With the Klitschko’s scoring dominant but dull wins over an increasingly anonymous array of challengers, Haye knocking John Ruiz out will put him at the top of the pile of possible box-office draws at heavyweight. And it might, just might, get him some of the credit he deserves.