By Scott Gilfoid: Former two division world champion David Haye (26-2, 24 KO’s) underwent a 5-hour surgery on his right shoulder and he’s reportedly been told to retire by doctors. It’s unclear whether Haye will listen to the advice and it’s unknown when and where the shoulder injury occurred.
Could it have come from Haye’s furious sparring sessions with American knockout artist Deontay Wilder in his preparation for his postponed fight against Tyson Fury? We saw Haye taking a lot of heavy blows from the powerful Deontay in that sparring session. Shortly after that, Haye suffered a cut over his eye that caused the fight to be postponed.
The injury wipes out the February 8th fight against Fury, and it leaves you wondering when or if that fight will be rescheduled. With the amount of cash that Haye can make from that fight, it’s incredibly difficult to imagine Haye not coming back to continue his career and face Fury at some point in 2014.
Haye was said to have had surgery to repair his right subscapularis and bicep tendon, which he ruptured.
Haye said to Hayemaker Promotions “It’s a crushing blow for me. I had big plans for my next year and the ultimate goal was to win back the world heavyweight title, something my amazing fans deserve. What I didn’t anticipate was that this year would be the unluckiest of my career and that a number of my injuries would disrupt my plans so much. Perhaps it wasn’t meant to be. The boxing gods keep hinting that maybe enough is enough and that it’s time to finally hang up my gloves.”
Well, if Andre Ward fought for years with a shoulder injury, then I don’t see why Haye can’t fight longer with a shoulder that’s been surgically repaired. I mean, it’s not as if his right hand was his strongest punch. His left hook has always been his trademark power punch and that should be more than enough for Haye to take on Fury and get a knockout. Of course, Haye would have major problems in challenging one of the Klitshkos for a world title, but then again he probably has no change against either of them anyway even with a perfectly good right shoulder.
It’s interesting that Fury was really complimentary of Deontay Wilder in an interview with IFLTV yesterday. I wondered why Fury would all of a sudden start lathering up Deontay with the compliments and now with the news about Haye having shoulder surgery, it makes me think that Fury knew about the surgery yesterday. Fury looked unhappy, but he wouldn’t tell the interviewer what was bothering him. But it could be that he saw his February 8th fight having gone down the drain with Haye’s injury. That would make a lot of sense.
Deontay already said that he’s more than interested in facing Fury. The big question is would Fury’s promoter Mick Hennessy let the 6’9″ Fury face the 6’7″ Deontay on February 8th? There would no longer be any height advantage to speak of for Fury because Deontay is almost the same height and he has longer arms than Fury, so the reach advantage would be in Deontay’s favor, not Fury’s. I can see Fury not taking on the dangerous Deontay due to his one-punch power. With Deontay, you can’t make any mistakes with him because he can knockout you out with one shot.
Comments are closed.