Haye has enough to crush Ruiz

David Haye will defend his WBA heavyweight title this weekend against the 'Quiet Man' John Ruiz. The last person I can remember applying that label to themselves was Iain Duncan-Smith and look at what happened to him.
When the fight was first announced I thought at the time, and I still think, that Ruiz would be a tailor-made opponent for Haye. As a heavyweight he's on the small side and at 6ft 2in he's an inch shorter than the champion. Ruiz is now 38 years old and never possessed the fastest hands in the business even when he was in his prime. On the face of it then, the Hayemaker should walk straight through the challenger and add a 22nd knock-out victim to his CV in what is only his 25th fight. The bookies reflect that belief and Bet365 offer a best-priced 8/11 on a Haye victory coming by way of KO, TKO or DQ.
Having said all that, I will put the case for the defence. Ruiz has lost eight times in his 54-fight career but has only been stopped once: an astonishing ten-second destruction at the hands of the 5ft 10in New Zealander David Tua back in 1996. Tua went on to challenge Lennox Lewis for the heavyweight world championship, losing on points. Coincidentally he returns to action this Friday against, ahem, Friday Ahunanya for something called the WBO Oriental heavyweight title.
But going back to Ruiz, he has fought 26 times since the Tua nightmare and has never been stopped, including three epic battles with Evander Holyfield which all went the distance and ended in a win, a loss and a draw. Crucially, 11 of Ruiz's last 15 fights have gone to the scorecards and he has the experience and sheer awkwardness to make Haye's night difficult. Ladbrokes and a few others offer 11/4 on a Haye points win which is good value but I still have a sneaky suspicion Haye will land at least one of his Hayemakers during the course of the night and it will be interesting to see whether Ruiz's 38 year old legs can survive the wobble. My guess is they won't, especially if it comes late on, and Bet365's 9-1 on a Haye knock-out coming in rounds 10,11 or 12 is a real tempter.