By Michael Lieberman: In one of the worst refereed fights that I’ve ever seen in my life, British heavyweight David Haye (22-1, 21 KOs) stopped American Monte Barrett (34-7, 20 KOs) in the 5th round at the O2 Arena (Millenium Dome), Greenwich, in London. Haye, 28, dropped Barrett five times in the fight, although only three of them seemed to be legitimate. The other two – one from a rabbit punch and the other from a phantom punch that missed – were knockdowns that the referee should have ruled off.
In the 5th round, Barrett dropped Haye with a left hook to the head after Haye had missed two sloppily thrown punches. However, instead of counting it as a knockdown, the referee ruled that he was off balance.
Haye looked fine, though, and was merely stooping over after having missed badly with the shots. It was a terrible call. To make things worse, after Haye went down, Barrett tagged him with another left hand for good measure. He was then docked a point by the referee.
The strange thing is, Barrett had slipped to the canvas in the fourth round, falling down without getting hit, which the referee mistakenly ruled a knockdown. However, while he was down, Haye tagged him with a right hand after Barrett was down. In this case, the referee failed to deduct a point from Haye for his late hit.
The knockdown shouldn’t have counted, because Barrett had slipped to the canvas without being hit. As he was slipping, Haye tried to punch him but missed with a left hand. No punches were landed. Barrett tried to protest his case to the referee but he was having none of it and counted the knockdown.
After Barrett knocked Haye down in the 5th round with a left, and was subsequently deducted a point for adding a left hand parting shot after Haye was down, it seemed to take all the air out of Barrett’s sails. He looked disappointed, as if he couldn’t do anything right. Haye, who clearly was badly hurt from the shot, stayed down for a long time while the referee took away a point from Barrett.
Haye finally got to his feet after a long period of time, only to go back down and take a knee again, looking out in the audience as if he were trying to clear his head from the punch. Granted, it was a good punch from Barrett, but it didn’t look like that big of a shot to do that kind of damage.
In that moment, it seemed to reveal Haye’s problems with taking a big punch, because he looked out of it and if the referee hadn’t stopped action to take away points from Barrett, I think Haye himself would have been the one that was stopped.
Finally, after the action was resumed, Haye charged after Barrett and missed a few wild punches, all of them badly telegraphed. However, he eventually connected with a right uppercut followed by a left forearm that put Barrett down for the final time in the fight.
All in all, Haye looked absolutely horrible, wild, unskilled, slow, lethargic, timing off, heavier and badly telegraphing his shots. He led with his left hook much of the time, leaping to throw it, leaving himself wide open for counter shots often. Against a better fighter than Barrett, he would have been picked off and stopped in his tracks.
However, he picked his opponent well, and was able to get away with his sloppy technique. Most top ten heavyweights would have beaten Haye on Saturday the way he fought. Barrett had no problem landing anything all night, but the problem was that he rarely let his hands go. When he did, though, he connected every time.
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