By Chris Williams: Last Saturday night, David Haye (22-1, 21 KOs) survived a scare in the 5th round when he was nailed by a huge left hook thrown by journeyman Monte Barrett, which knocked Haye down and seemingly had him hurt enough to stay down for a considerable amount of time before getting up.
Haye would soon after take another knee while the referee Richard James Davies deducted a point from Barrett for nailing Haye with a left hand while he was down on the canvas. The punch wasn’t thrown with much power, and certainly wasn’t hard enough to keep Haye on the canvas for nearly 30 seconds, which is about how long he stayed on his knee on the canvas.
The knockdown was ruled a slip by the referee, but it appeared legitimate when shown on replay, making me wonder why the referee had decided to discount the knockdown. Whatever the case, Haye was clearly hurt from the knockdown, needing a substantial amount of time on the deck before finally getting up and continuing the fight.
This leaves me wondering what would have occurred had the referee not discounted the knockdown. Sure, the referee did the right thing by taking a point away from Barrett for landing a soft left hand while Haye was down, but an argument could be made that the referee should have ignored the punch and scored it as a knockdown instead, because Haye had hit Barrett with a late punch a round earlier after but the referee for some reason had decided not to take a point away from Haye.
I suppose that’s one of the advantages of fighting in your home country, but it doesn’t seem hardly fair for Barrett. I mean, if the referee saw fit to deduct a point from Barrett in the 5th, he could have at least been consistent about his ruling on the matter and also taken a point away from Haye in the 4th for his late hit after Barrett hit the deck.
As things turned out, Haye really needs to thank the referee for giving him extra time by taking a point away from Barrett, because without that happening, there’s a good chance that Haye would have been knocked out by him. The considerable time that was taken for Barrett to be docked a point, and Haye to get off the canvas, consumed thirty seconds which allowed Haye to recover from the knockdown and finish Barrett off with a string of punches after the stoppage in the action.
Note: Since winning defeating Barrett, Haye has stated that he’d like to still fight the Klitschko brothers, and is looking at a possible fight with Vitali in 2009. However, my question is this: If Haye can’t even beat Barrett without getting knocked down and saved by a knockout by the referee, how can Haye even consider himself as worthy to fight one of the Klitschko brothers?
At this point, given his poor performance against Barrett, Haye doesn’t rate a fight with the Klitschko brothers, both of whom would probably plant him permanently on the canvas in a round or two.
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