Haye says “I’m going to have to beat him [Ruiz] within an inch of his life”

By William Mackay: WBA heavyweight champion David Haye (23-1, 21 KO’s) has ratcheted up his trash talk for his 38-year-old challenger John Ruiz (44-8-1, 30 KO’s) this Saturday night, saying “I’m going to have to beat him within an inch of his life. I know he’s got good powers of recovery and I’m really going to have to hammer away at him. I know that if I keep chopping, the tree will eventually fall.” In an earlier interview, Haye talked of “Decapitating” Ruiz, so this sounds a little less hyperbolic comment than that, but not by much.

Strangely enough, the 29-year-old Haye is supposed to have toned down his trash talking compared to previous outings. If that’s so, it’s really hard to tell judging from some of the less than kind comments he’s making towards Ruiz. The long and short of it is Haye wants to look good in this fight so that he can catch attention from boxing fans from around the world, in particular in the U.S.

If Haye can look good beating one of the best fighters in the United States, it will help sell a future fight against one of the Klitschko brothers. As of now, Haye is still pretty much invisible for the most part with the casual boxing fan, and really only known by hardcore boxing fans in the U.S. Haye still won’t get a lot of attention even if he does beat Ruiz in an impressive fashion, because the Ruiz-Haye fight won’t be shown on television in the United States.

However, Haye will still be able to win some respect from U.S. fans if he’s able to dispatch Ruiz early in the fight. It’s been 14 years since Ruiz was last knocked out, losing by a 1st round knockout in 1996 to a young David Tua. Ruiz has improved immensely since that time, and has been able to go the distance with big sluggers like Evander Holyfield, Andrew Golota and Hasim Rahman. Ruiz has also beaten fighters like Kirk Johnson, Fres Oquendo, Rahman, and Holyfield.

Haye doesn’t have nearly the same experience at heavyweight. Most of Haye’s experience is limited to cruiserweight opponents, many of which most boxing fans – other than hardcore fans – have ever heard of. Since moving up to the heavyweight division, Haye has beaten Tomasz Bonin, Monte Barrett and Nikolay Valuev. Haye blew his chances to fight the Klitschko brothers last year, backing away with a back injury for the bout with Wladimir and then taking off on Vitali and choosing the lighter punching Valuev instead.

Those moves didn’t win Haye any new fans in the U.S. Indeed, a lot of people feel that Haye is a cherry picker, and afraid of taking on dangerous opponents like the Klitschko brothers. As weird as it is, Haye has never stopped talking about the Klitschko brothers through all this time, even when backing out of fights with them.

This is why some people see Haye as someone that talks a lot but who doesn’t back it up in the ring. Haye promised an exciting fight for the Value bout. It didn’t exactly happen like that, unfortunately. Haye spent most of the time fighting tentatively, pawing with his jab and moving a lot. Exciting heavyweight, it was not. Now Haye is promising to knock Ruiz out, decapitate him and beat him within an inch of his life. It’s hard to believe Haye now. He’s got to stop talking and starting proving that he’s for real.