By Gari Jones: Fans of boxing were treated to something extra special last Saturday night, a WBC Heavyweight title fight before action moved onto the main event between Derek Chisora V David Haye (little joke no disrespect Vitali). After the match was over in which Vitali Klitschko (W44, KO40, L2, D0) defended his WBC crown for a consecutive 8th time and Chisora (W15, KO9, L3, D0) despite losing, became only the fourth person to take Vitali the distance. The event was capped off with an all out British clash that was like something you normally see in professional wrestling.

Despite the unprofessional slap to Vitali by Chisora at the weigh in, it had been a good entertaining fight; Chisora emerged from the bout with more credit than he started it with after putting in a courageous and aggressive performance. With the fight behind them and the post fight press conference underway, everything appeared to be going as normal, until Boente decided to mention David Haye.

For those of you who don’t know what happened here’s a brief recap:

Boente was speaking bout Vitali’s shoulder and then went on to talk about Chisora’s performance by saying “Contrary to David Haye, Chisora REALLY WENT FOR IT, REALLY TRIED” citing that Haye put in a mediocre performance against Wladimir (which he did lets be fair) Haye was not happy about the way in which Boente was criticizing him and responded by saying “so you don’t want to fight David Haye ” and “I accepted your offer in December” then it went downhill from there.

Whilst Haye and Boente were disputing the December issue, Chisora decided to add his two cents by saying “Sky Sports don’t do Box Office for Boxing because of David Haye” to which someone there (I don’t know who) agreed by saying “thats true”, Chisora then went on to add “Haye has messed up box office for all the other upcoming fighters and I’m gonna give him TWO SLAPS for that” and he finished it up with “if David Haye is a fighter he should fight me”. Haye decided to scream and rant the whole time this was going on, citing he would only come out of retirement to fight Vitali.

This should’ve been Chisora’s night but David decided it best to wind Chisora up by saying he’s a loser and that he’s lost three times, Chisora being the unpredictable character proceeded to confront him and it’s from this point on that Chisora did not do himself any favours at all.

By the time Derek got to Haye he had taken off his jacket, told his entourage to follow and stay behind him, walked right pass the press assembled there and up to David’s face. David responded to that by elbowing Derek, hitting him with a glass bottle (that luckily smashed over Derek’s covered up arms and not his face) and then a left to the head. Group therapy then followed with Chisora and Hayes entourage all piling in trying to separate the two, if that wasn’t enough the brawl then continued into the back of the room.

If you watch the film carefully, by now Derek is off camera and apparently threatening to shoot and burn David Haye, Haye has been pulled off another one of Chisora’s entourage and Adam Booth is trying to keep David away from them. When it looks like it’s all under control, David decides to pick up a stool and swings it at the person he was just pulled off, only for it to smack Adam Booth on the head and cut his forehead open (you can see Adam react to it).

Aftermath:

When it was all over, David had left the area and Chisora tried to apologise to everyone for what had just transpired, he especially tried to reconcile with Adam Booth. While Adam was standing there with a cut into his forehead, Chisora tried to point out that David was the one who had the bottle and he’s the one that glassed him with it. By now it was clear to see Adam was really fed up and pointed out to Chisora that someone hit him with a bottle, even though if you look back at the footage Adam reacts to the exact point when David swung the stool. The event ended with Adam congratulating Vitali and saying he was a great champion but his Manager (Bernard Boente) was an embarrassment to the sport.

Conclusion:

Derek Chisora is looking at a lifetime ban, massive fine and a prison sentence for his violent behaviour and chosen comments. I personally don’t think he deserves a life time ban or a prison sentence; this is not the first time two profile British boxers have clashed. In 1994 Herbie Hide v Michael Bentt and in 2002 Lennox Lewis v Mike Tyson offered some heavy heated brawls, neither men were stripped of their licences.

David Haye really had no business being at the press conference but no one would really object to it anyway. David’s reactions are always provocative and energetic, he confronts you on every issue and it’s no surprise to see people lose their cool with him. I would class David’s reaction to Chisora as a self defence mechanism triggered by Chisora and his entourage approaching with a threatening manner. However the use of a glass bottle and stool as an offensive weapon can’t be condoned.

David showed he has a tendency to be confrontational and abusive with people and Chisora has the conduct of a young violent teenager and needs to grow up, his comments of “two slaps” and threatening to “shoot and burn” David are not exactly proper conduct . Neither fighter did themselves proud at that press conference, but in my opinion it’s done, its dusted no one died and no one was seriously hurt so let that be it. The British Boxing Council really need to just let the German authorities handle this matter as it happened in Germany not Britain.

When people decide on this I wouldn’t let Media or Pundits looking to grab some attention be allowed to influence anyone’s decision on this, I’ve already seen headlines suggesting these two be sentenced to five years in prison and that this is the darkest day in boxing source BBC and SKYSPORTS.COM. I would suggest Haye and Chisora pay a fine, issue an apology and be made to do charity work, if Haye did decided to come back his licence as well as Chisora’s should be put on probation for 12-18 months any foul up in that time and then they serve a ban.