Haye Slays The Beast

Posted by Michael Payne on 11.07.2009

David Haye did what many thought was impossible tonight and beat Nikolay Valuev to take the WBA Heavyweight title.

It was in no way the most exciting fight you will witness but David Haye did what was required to capture the heavyweight crown.

From the outset Haye did what he needed to do. He had a disciplined game plan and stuck to it. Hitting and moving and making Valuev look bad. The only down side was if he had been aggressive enough.

Valuev looked extremely one dimensional from the outset looking predictably slow and robotic, trying to throw his jab at Haye. The majority of the rounds looked very hard to score. Haye looked the far better boxer, while Valuev was the one trying to make a fight.

Haye looked extremely impressive in the opening few rounds, hitting his opponent when given the chance and making him miss frequently. The middle rounds though were very hard to score. Valuev was on the attack but missed a lot, while Haye just seemed content in making him miss.

In the Later rounds Haye seemed to realize he needed to do more and upped his work rate to good effect, rocking Valuev for the first time in his career in the final round. By the time the final bell rang I feared Haye had followed his game plan a little too well and had not been aggressive enough to land victory.

Haye won a majority victory by 114-114 116-112 116-112 and became Britons first heavyweight champion since Lennox Lewis.

Catch my full rundown of the fight in Mondays ‘Here Comes the Payne'.