By Jim Dower: #6 WBA, #8 WBC, #11 IBF heavyweight contender David Haye (27-2, 25 KOs) weighed in 224 pounds on Friday for his fight this Saturday night against Arnold Gjergjaj (29-0, 21 KOs) at the O2 Arena in London, UK. Gjergjaj weighed in at 237lbs. Both fighters looked in good shape.
For Haye, his weight is slightly less than the 227lbs he weighed in his last fight against Mark De Mori last January. Haye bulked up from the 210lbs he had weighed the last time he fought four years ago in 2012.
Haye wants to be heavier now than he was during his earlier time in the heavyweight division because he’s going to need size for him to compete against the larger heavyweights that dominate the division now. There’s only one small heavyweight champion in Ruslan Chagaev, and he’s someone that likely won’t stay at that spot for too much longer.
Haye, 6’3”, will be giving up a couple of inches in height to the 6’5” Gjergjaj in this fight. However, Gjergjaj is very slow of hand and he’s not look especially impressive in his recent fights against Denis Bakhtov and Zoltan Csala. Gjergjaj’s fight against Bakhtov was a close affair where he barely won the fight. Both fighters stood and traded leather from start to finish. Gjergjaj didn’t have enough power to bang Bakhtov out of there. This is the same Bakhtov that Joshua stopped in two rounds in October 2014, and Manuel Charr halted in five rounds in 2013.
Haye wants to put together a handful of wins before challenging IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua in 2017. Haye would take the fight with Joshua right now, but he wants the fight to build first. Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn feels the same way. He wants the Joshua-Haye fight to build over time before he puts the two of them together in a massive PPV fight. Haye needs to get a few more wins over credible opposition before making that fight a reality. Briggs. 44, is ranked #7 by the World Boxing Association.
Briggs is not seen by the hardcore boxing fans as a major player in the heavyweight division, but he has an ability to pull in the casual boxing fans with his over the top theatrics outside of the ring. Briggs is an old school promoter of his fights with the way he follows his potential opponents around to ambush them in different places. Briggs did just that with Haye by catching him at the Joshua vs. Charles Martin weigh-in recently to ask him for a fight. Haye was on the spot with the cameras on him, and he ended up agreeing to fight him.
Heavyweight Shannon Briggs weighed in at 250lbs. His opponent for Saturday Emilio Ezequiel Zarate (20-16-3, 11 KOs) hasn’t weighed in yet. Briggs and Zarate will be the co-feature bout on the Haye vs. Gjergjaj. If Haye and Briggs both win their fights, then they’ll be meeting up in the ring in four months from now in September in a fight that will be taking place in the UK. Briggs feels he’s got a great chance of beating Haye.