Haye v Klitschko: The Big Fight Verdict

In the end, it was wholly predictable if depressingly so. Dr Steelhammer jabbed and prodded his way to a deserved points victory over a pitifully below par David Haye. Klitschko’s style may not be especially pretty but it’s certainly effective and this was probably his best performance to date - although as a spectacle it was fairly horrible. The tension at the beginning of the fight – would Haye get inside to land big on the Ukranian’s chin? – soon gave way to round after round of monotony. A pattern was established quickly with Klitschko working well behind his ramrod jab, leaving an increasingly flustered Haye swinging wildly at thin air and more often than not, falling over in the process. Every time Haye wound-up one of his patented ‘Hayemakers’ the Ukrainian took a step back and shoved the smaller man to the canvas. It was pitiful to watch. But Haye’s problems didn’t begin and end with the size difference or even Klitschko’s slightly dubious tactics. His timing was well off and he appeared to lose his balance almost every time he threw a punch. After the fight, he tried to blame this on a broken toe, and while painful, I’d have been more inclined to believe him if it had been a big toe he’d broken, not the little one. And it hardly befits a heavyweight champion of the world to moan about a little toe given some of the punishment his illustrious predecessors have had to endure on the way to the title. So where does all this leave Haye and the heavyweight division in general? Klitschko has certainly done his reputation no harm, in addition to picking up the WBA belt to add his collection. While few people would call him an exciting champion, there’s no denying his skill as a ring tactician. That is what I believe he is and his 56 victories are a testament to that, but he is not in my opinion a great fighter in the sense that I don’t think he enjoys a scrap in the way the best boxers over the years have. As for Haye, if he keeps to his word and retires in October, he probably only has one fight left to rescue his legacy. That fight is a must-win against a top-name opponent, maybe even Vitali Klitschko. Anything less, particularly another underwhelming domestic clash against someone like Derek Chisora, won’t be enough to take away the bitter taste left by this contest.

PREVIEW: Haye v Klitschko

After what seems like years of build-up - actually this is literally true, the fight was first mooted in 2009 - boxing fans will finally get the opportunity on Saturday night to see whether David Haye has what it takes to, in his own words, 'clean up the heavyweight division'.
Some of the pre-fight build up has been pretty tedious and some of it has bordered on the bizarre. But all is fair when there's box office tickets to sell and this one could break all the records. Certainly the appetite is there in Germany where TV audiences for boxing have been huge in the past. Saturday's fight in Hamburg is expected to attract a 60 per cent share of the TV audience in addition to the 50,000 fans crammed into the Imtech Arena. It's a welcome reminder of the days when the heavyweight championship really was the biggest prize in sport.
As for the fight itself, it could be a classic. If Haye keeps to his word and retires before his 31st birthday in October, this could very possibly be his last fight. He has to leave everything in the ring or he will regret it for the rest of his life. But it won't be easy to wrestle the belts from Klitschko that he's held since 2006. The Ukrainian has a strong jab, a longer reach and the ring nous to do just what it takes in front of sympathetic judges on home turf. If Haye let's it go to the cards, he'll be in big trouble, but then very few Haye fights go the distance. The major exception was his fight against Valuev in which he boxed sensibly, moved in and out of range and only took risks when it was clear the big man was dead on his feet. Klitschko is a completely different prospect. To win, Haye will have to knock him out, but that is by no means beyond him. The omens are good. Klitschko's two previous conquerers - Corrie Sanders and Lamon Brewster - were heavy-handed shorter men in the Haye mould. Sanders is 6 ft 4in and Brewster 6ft 2in, while Haye is right in the middle at 6ft 3in. Throughout his career, the one thing that has never been in doubt about David Haye is his power. When he connects, it's goodnight Vienna.
Like Lennox Lewis, I'm torn. My heart says Haye, my head says Klitschko. So I'm going to split myself in two with a bet on Haye to win by KO or TKO in rounds 4 to 6 at 8/1 with Betfred and a saver on Klitschko on points at 15/4 with Bet365.

Preview: Pacquiao vs Mosley

This has been a big week for boxing, for all sorts of reasons. On Sunday the British fight game lost one of its most iconic figures. Sir Henry Cooper - our 'enery - typified the spirit of the age in which fought and was, as his most famous opponent Muhammad Ali said, 'a great fighter and a gentleman'. He will be missed.
On Saturday night the ever-popular Prizefighter series goes international with a night of heavyweight boxing from Alexandra Palace in north London. Being a bit of a boxing traditionalist I wasn't a big fan of the format when it first appeared in 2008. But I have to admit, I'm a convert. It will be interesting to see if the concept takes off internationally and helps revive interest in boxing, as Steve Bunce clearly believes.
Over in Las Vegas, Nevada, boxing promoters are having little difficulty stimulating interest in Pacquiao's next outing, even if we're no closer to the mulit-million pound superfight with Mayweather we all want to see. 'Sugar' Shane Mosley has had a great career and is a tough cookie, but at 39 most people expect him to be too slow for Pacquiao's whirling fists. Pacquiao has fought three times since he destroyed Hatton back in May 2009 and although Cotto, Clottey and Margarito presented very different challenges, they all had something in common. They all managed to take the contest into the twelfth round and they all ended in convincing victories for the Filipino great. Mosley meanwhile has made it to the twelfth round in five of his last six fights. If the pattern is to continue, the 25/1 on offer from Sporting Bet for a Pacquiao victory in Round 12 looks tempting. I'm not quite that brave though, so I'm going for rounds 10-12, a 6-1 shot with newcomers Unibet.

Review: The Fighter

On Monday night I was lucky enough to attend a preview screening of David Russell's new Oscar-nominated film, The Fighter, which stars Mark Wahlberg as 'Irish' Micky Ward.
Ward is an unlikely subject for a boxing biopic but then this isn't really a film about his career. If it was it would never end before the fights which made him famous - an epic trilogy against Arturo Gatti (pictured above). It's really a film about his family and in particular his brother Dick Ecklund, an ex-boxer and crack addict, brilliantly portrayed in the film by Christian Bale. It's a crazy, helter-skelter performance that has to be seen to be believed and Bale is as short as 1/9 to take home the Oscar at the end of the month. Ecklund is a compelling character, a local legend around Lowell on account of his 1978 fight with Sugar Ray Leonard (he had Leonard on the canvas, but lost on points). The HBO documentary which chronicled his sad decent into drug addiction - and which features in the film - is now available to view online.
But back to those Gatti fights. If you've just come back from the cinema and you want to know what happened next, then I urge you to go on YouTube and look up Gatti-Ward.
The pair fought a total of three times, two victories for Gatti and one for Ward - but that doesn't tell the half of it. Two of their three contests were subsequently voted 'Fight of the Year' by Ring magazine and they still take the breath away, even on second, third, and fourth viewing.
Their first encounter was one of those rare occasions, in boxing and in life, when two men with an abundance of what fight people call 'heart' met in a head-on collision the like of which we may never see again. Like two cars driving towards each at full speed, they never let up the tempo, each daring the other to be the first to pull out. All three of their fights were over 10 rounds and it is interesting to speculate how they would have turned out over the 12-round championship distance. Both men gave literally everything they had, and walked away with the satisfaction of knowing they had left their blood, sweat, their very souls on the canvas.
Despite the ferocity of their fights, both became close friends after their boxing careers were over, sharing a bond few people will ever understand. Ward was devastated when Gatti was found dead in a Brazilian hotel room in 2009. His death has never been satisfactorily explained, but the fight world lost one of its most charismatic figures.
When I first watched those Gatti-Ward fights I always sided with Gatti, I'm not sure why. But knowing something of Ward's own extraordinary back story means I'll watch them again with new eyes.
The Fighter is a helluva film and deserves every one of its seven Oscar nominations. Amy Adams is also a revelation as Ward's feisty girlfriend Charlene who gives as good as she gets against Ward's mother and seven sisters. In real life there's no love lost between them to this day. The movie ends with Ward's 2000 victory over Shea Neary, a promising fighter who had previously been unbeaten but retired just two fights later. Both men played strongly on their Irish roots: Micky Ward was known simply as 'Irish' while Neary went by the nickname, the 'Shamrock Express'. In the movie though, most of the crowd in the London-based fight are wearing Union Jack t-shirts. A minor point, because the movie as a whole is superb.