By William Mackay: World Boxing Association (WBA) heavyweight champion David Haye (24-1, 22 KO’s) is denying that he was dropped by 6’5″ heavyweight contender Tony Thompson in one of their sparring sessions recently. Haye’s scheduled November 13th opponent Audley Harrison (27-4, 20 KO’s) revealed in an interview last week that he had heard that the 30-year-old Haye has been dropped by Thompson while sparring.

Rather than ignoring it, Haye quickly denied it, saying in an interview at Sky Sports News, “I’m still racking my brain to come up with a time when Tony Thompson dropped me. I’ve confereed with a few people around me that watched the spars and we’re all having the same mental block when it comes to the incident. Maybe Thompson hit me so hard that I’ve actually forgotten what happened. For the record, no, Thompson did not drop me or even come close to hurting me in sparring. In order to drop someone, you first need to be able to land a punch on them.”

It’s hard to know who to believe at this point, because Harrison has always been a pretty reliable person and not one to just make up stories. Also, it’s difficult to buy Haye’s story about not getting hit by the long-armed Thompson in sparring. Since that’s virtually impossible for a short heavyweight like the 6’2″ Haye to avoid getting hit by someone as good as Thompson, I have to discount everything that Haye says. If Haye had been a little more down to earth in what he was saying by just denying it, I might believe him at his word.

But I think Harrison could be right about Haye getting getting knocked down. Whatever the case, it really doesn’t matter much. Thompson has no power, is 39-years-old, and not in the same class as Harrison in being able to bang out his opponents. Thompson is a paid sparring partner, and a lot of them are sent home if they work over one of the champions. He’s paid to give the guy rounds, not knock him out.