By chris Williams: In a refreshing revelation from World Boxing Association heavyweight champion David Haye, he admits to having a chin problem in an article at GQ magazine, saying “I’ll always have a suspect chin, anyone who’s been down always will have.” It’s really good to see Haye owning up to his chin problem. Few boxers are open enough to admit when they have a weak chin. That’s why Haye’s bluntness about his own weaknesses is like a breath of fresh air to the heavyweight division.

However, in the same interview, Haye says “Apart from Thompson I’ve never been on the canvas for longer than eight seconds. You can train yourself to take punishment.” I’m suddenly less thrilled by this part of the interview. I mean, yes, Haye hasn’t been down for more than eight seconds apart from the Thompson fight, but he’s still been knocked down, and we’re not even talking about heavyweights.

Haye was knocked down by cruiserweight Jean Marc Mormeck and Lolenga Mock, a super middleweight. In Haye’s bout with the light-hitting 38-year-old Monte Barrett in November 2008, Haye appeared to be knocked down from a left hand from Barrett. However, the referee ruled it a slip, but it looked to me like Haye was caught flush with a left to the head as he was moving forward.

While Haye was down, Barrett added another left hand to the head, which didn’t look like all that big of a punch. But Haye got up after that, and then immediately went back down to a knee and stayed in that position for a considerable amount of time. Was Haye badly hurt by one of those left hands from Barrett? I don’t know but it didn’t look good the way Haye needed a lot of time to get back up. Of course, this is neither here nor there, because the referee ruled it a slip. I’ve seen the replay countless times and it still looks like a clean knockdown to me though.

In 2004, Haye was stopped in the 5th round by 40-year-old Carl Thompson. Haye came out fast in that fight, unloading his entire arsenal and expecting a knockout. However, the veteran Thompson calmly took Haye’s biggest shots and by the 4th round, he began to dominate the exhausted Haye, who ended up getting dropped and stopped by Thompson in the fight.

Haye says “I realized talent can only get you so far. I’d had 10 easy fights before then and stopped them all. After a while you wouldn’t bother training. Now I have more hunger.” Let’s hope that hunger is all that it takes, because Haye is defending his title in May against former heavyweight champion John Ruiz, and you can expect that Haye is going to be catching some big shots in that fight.

Ruiz may not be a big puncher like some of the more powerful heavyweights in the division like the Klitschko brothers, but he hits hard enough to take out a heavyweight with a history of being knocked down. I’d say that Ruiz hits as hard as cruiserweight Carl Thompson. If Haye tries to come after Ruiz all out looking for a knockout like he did against Thompson, we may see Ruiz shock the world and capture another heavyweight title.