David Haye: Heavyweight Haymaker

On the 27th of April Britain’s premier cruiserweight David “Haymaker’ Haye makes his second trip to the land of the giants as he tackles WBC number 11 ranked heavyweight Tomasz Bonin at Wembley arena. Haye of course already has one appearance in the unlimited weight class under his belt, a hastily arranged third round blow-out of Gary Delaney back in 2005.

Click for larger image © Jane Warburton Saddo Boxing

Bonin was last on British soil back in 2004 when he challenge Audley Harrison for his lightly regarded WBF heavyweight title. Bonin was halted in nine but to be fair it was a suspect stoppage. Since then the Warsaw man has gone on an unbeaten streak of eleven fights, albeit against less than distinguished opposition. In his last contest he was involved in an up and down affair with debutant Pavil Silvin, Bonin was on the deck in the first before stopping his man in the second.

Haye’s appearance at heavyweight comes as no surprise. The Bermondsey man has been talking about mixing it with the big boys for a long time now and it was always going to be sooner rather than later. Haye’s timing is questionable though. When Haye starched Euro champ Alexander Gurov he picked up a good ranking with the WBC and has followed it up with three defences, the last of the three being a final eliminator for the title that O’Neil Bell wrestled from Jean Marc Mormeck. Haye waited patiently whilst Bell and Mormeck had a return, this time Mormeck came through. So now Haye sits pretty as the mandatory challenger for the WBC cruiserweight championship of the world, he is, and has been for some time struggling to make the cruiserweight limit, which makes his decision to take a fight at heavy all the more confusing.

It will be interesting to see what Haye weighs in at. If he’s hovering just over the 200 lb cruiserweight limit then all is not lost. But if Haye comes in at say 220-225 then he might have a problem on his hands, or on the scales to be more accurate. You can be sure that whatever weight Haye has put on wont be soft and carried around his midriff, his vanity will ensure that it is sculpted muscle packed on in all the right places. I’m no expert when it comes to weight loss, the extra few pounds I carry on a daily basis are testament to that, but if an athlete who is already tight at the weight gets bigger, that cant be a good thing…..right?

For this reason many feel that we have might have seen the last of David Haye at cruiserweight. A good performance against a decent well ranked heavy will be all the convincing he needs to put the grind of getting down to the cruiserweight limit behind him and settle into his task of emulating another Frank Maloney charge, Lennox Lewis. It would be a shame if that proves to be the case. Haye’s team are quick to quash any thought of Haye not returning to face Mormeck, time will tell on that one.

Since the departure of Lennox Lewis we have been looking around and scratching our heads wondering who is going to carry the British heavyweight flag. I’d be more than happy if David Haye was that man but please, settle things at cruiserweight first.