BOXING:THE PROBLEM with relentless self-inflation is that the pop can be heard around the world. On one rainy night David Haye passed from saviour of the heavyweight division to heavily beaten fighter with nowhere to go except the margins he had talked his way out of to be in the house of the Klitschkos for 12 unhappy rounds.
As Wladimir grabbed one last chance to lecture Haye on all aspects of his conduct – even his broken toe – at 2.30am yesterday in Hamburg’s Imtech Arena, the champion’s brother, Vitali, sat at the back reading the screen of his phone. He looked bored.
For the Klitschko industry this was a routine piece of business. A trash-talking Londoner had stepped on to their territory and been taught a lesson. In the great tradition of the fairground they might have shouted: Next!
Wladimir is an engaging soul and a classic heavyweight, with height, reach, power, strength and defensive skill. But he is not even the best boxer in his family, so Haye can have little hope of breaking the duopoly.
His own passivity and technical naivety exposed him as a pumped-up cruiserweight who was capable of beating Audley Harrison, Monte Barrett, John Ruiz or Nikolai Valuev, but is out-gunned by the real masters of the trade.
The last memory from an underwhelming contest is of Haye climbing on to the table in the press conference room and displaying the toe he says he broke three weeks ago but said nothing about.
“I’m not a doctor,” protested Klitschko.
“Yes you are,” Haye fired back.
Dr Steelhammer has a PhD in sports science and psychology but is no GP. Unable to finish the evening on top of the world, Haye had to content himself with being on top of the desk.
“That T-shirt really pissed me off,” Klitschko had said of Haye’s notorious double-Klitschko severed-head stunt.
“It was meant to,” Haye said.
Shorn of the aggressor role, he was forced into a new part: that of excuse-maker, joke-cracker and man without a definable future. Yes, he would like a rematch, he said, “but this is boxing, and in boxing you don’t always get what you want”.
Rematches are built on close or controversial decisions, on spectacular tear-ups of the sort the audience want to see again. Few in Haye’s 10,000 following would break the bank to see this fight a second time. At no stage was Klitschko in serious jeopardy. And while Haye is unlikely to fight this badly again, the sympathy vote seldom makes the turnstiles spin.
Besides, as his manager, Adam Booth, said: “No, doing business with the Klitschkos where you don’t have parity – I’d never do it. I don’t think David would do it. He’s not going to have that slave contract he complained about all the time.”
Lennox Lewis, who called Haye “the Muhammad Ali of his era”, is safely embedded as the finest British heavyweight of the post-war era.
Frank Bruno, another who won the world title in a tougher era, said the difference between cruiserweight and heavy is “Harrods and Primark”.
Evander Holyfield remains the most notable graduate from cruiserweight over 30 years, but Haye lacks the “Real Deal’s” iron constitution and ring savvy.
“I hate it when boxers give excuses, it makes me sick, but I broke the toe on my right foot three weeks ago,” Haye said. “I was unable to push off on my right foot and throw big powerful punches. This has definitely put heavyweight boxing back on the map.”
There are at least two ringing contradictions in there. In truth the heavyweight trade was not put “back on the map” by his hyped kerfuffle. It left the marvellous Klitschko boys more entrenched than ever and the floating viewer dissatisfied by the gap between hype and reality.
Wladimir Klitschko’s story, though, retains a sharp redemptive edge. “In 2004, when I was on the floor with two losses in a row, I was a broken man,” he said. “I want to say to my critics, eat your words. David Haye pissed me off, but it was great motivation.”
Addressing his victim, he said: “I hate you but I love you too. You gave me a great motivation.”
Klitschko’s camp savoured their revenge. “The fight went exactly as we thought it would go, although we expected David to be more aggressive,” said Emanuel Steward, the winner’s trainer. “We noticed that every time David throws his right, he loses his balance.”
These digs were intended to show Haye up as amateurish and ill-prepared.
“Don’t mention the bad toe. You will look like a sore loser. It won’t look good. Take it like it is. I’ve learnt in my experience it’s definitely wrong to do that,” Klitschko scolded.
Booth, who called the referee “disgraceful and disgusting”, presumably for not punishing Klitschko more for throwing Haye down (the winner was docked a point in the seventh round), said: “We always knew David would be reaching with the first two shots, but he was supposed to claim the ground and repeat it without a break. Because he was overbalancing he had to reset. So his legs weren’t working in the fight the way they were working in the gym.”
As Klitschko said in an Observer interview in June: “You work your ass off to get to the top. It takes a lot of time. The way up is very long. The way down is one step. All the years of work, and the respect collapses in one second. It’s like that in life, not just in boxing.”
This is the brutal accounting of a sport where the vanquished stands on a desk showing his sore toe, hoping for sympathy, and the victor is introduced to the room in booming tones as the weltmeister.
Severed hopes, not heads.
