Haye vs Valuev Undercard announced.....

[Fenster]

To be honest mate, it's only a bad matchup for people who know how bad Valuev is.

The general public sees a British HW going to fight a giant. I've heard a lot of casual fans talking about it & being quite excited. Plus if it's not on at a ridiculous time, it will benefit. As bad as Khan-Kotelnik did, Khan-Barrera did very well, because Barrera had the profile to help raise the event for your average fan.

i have heard a few people talking abt this fight who dont usually mention boxing, its just because of the size of valuev, fk most people never even seen a haye fight

I agree. Haye is currently in a similar position to that of Calzaghe around the time of the Lacy fight. Most of the public didn't really know who he was, just knew he was a boxer & had seen a little bit of him. However, the opponent is then sold as being unbeatable as Lacy was & Valuev is due to his size (I know he's been beaten, but most will see 50+ fights with only 1 defeat & think he's amazing).

I think this does quite well, it's probably the best Sky have marketed a fight since Hatton-Mayweather. More importantly I reckon if Haye wins he becomes an overnight star similar to how Calzaghe did after the Lacy fight.

Hmm.. not sure about that.

Calzaghe-Lacy was FREE on ITV. It had a couple of million watching at 2am (over 50% of TV sets were tuned to ITV at the time of the fight) and then bettered that on the sunday morning repeat. And was repeated again on ITV4 later in the week.

Plus Lacy was the NEW Tyson. His young unbeaten American superstar profile really helped sell that fight to the non-hardcore.

Haye-Valuev only has the heavyweight angle going for it. The fact it's PPV means it will do well to have a couple of hundred thousand watching.

If Haye wins his proflie will obviously be enhanced but I can't see it being a huge breakthrough with so few actual watchers.