Will Haye’s Outlandish Tactics Work?

By Richard Gough: I will approach my articles in a “Fair” and “Non-Biased” way, as is sometimes ignored from other so be called boxing experts and writers.

With Haye on his mission to clean up the Heavyweight division, his first port of call was the supposedly weaker Klitschko brother Wladimir. His trash-talking and general goading not only talked himself into a fight that most believe he did not deserve, but managed to wind up a genuinely calm man to the point where the statements coming out of the Wladimir camp were about how he will carry Haye to the later rounds, dishing out constant punishment before KO’ing him.

Here lies the first indication that what Haye does is get under the skin of opponents, and bothers them that much that they openly discuss tactics, and even change their fighting attitude to punish the slick talking Brit.

Haye is due to come up against the man mountain which is Nikolay Valuev on November 7th. Once again, Haye has been at the trash talking, and once again, it seems to be working. Calling the Russian a “Circus Freak”, saying that “He’s ugly as hell, He is the ugliest human being I’ve ever seen in the flesh. You see these horror movies and think nobody could look like that. No, this guy truly does.” before finishing with a personal attack on Valuev’s hygiene and supposed body odour issues.

Valuev, can be said, is not in the slightest bit impressed, stating to his management team and training team that he intends to KO Haye. Here lies the usefulness of this “Trash Talking”. Valuez will be looking for the KO, be throwing big, wild shots trying to tag Hayes chin, but the problem, is that Haye is as quick as Valuev is big. And Valuev is massive, Haye is lightning.

Haye will see the big punches coming, and be able to duck, dive and move out of the way before they land, and chuck in a couple of counters for the fun of it. I cannot sey Haye hurting Valuev, the guy’s never been knocked down, and for good reason. But Haye will be able to outpoint, outwork and outrun the Beast from the East. He will leave the fight result in the hands of the ringside judges. And I hope and pray that the fight does get a fair scoring, unlike a certain recent Super 6 bout.

I will end this article by suggesting that what Haye is doing, is adding another tool to his Arsenal. One which none of the other Heavyweight champions or Contenders have. So this can only be a major plus on his part, and I would like to thank Haye, for breathing some life (only a little so far) into the once strongest, historical and most exciting division in Boxing.

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