Richard Schaefer, the CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, was licking his lips. No promotional company in the United States has the power of Golden Boy at the moment and David Haye, whom it represents in America, is fresh, good-looking and the heavyweight champion of the world.
A good promoter would never undersell anything, so why not compare Haye to the greatest of all?
“This is a new time for the heavyweight division and it’s great that it has a charismatic champion,” Schaefer said. “He is a star of the division, but also a superstar of the sport of boxing. There are a lot of champions out there, but to be a superstar is another thing. For that you do need that other ingredient — charisma.
“You think back and Lennox Lewis was a great champion, but he was not as charismatic as David Haye. Evander Holyfield was a great champion, but not as charismatic as David. Mike Tyson was a great champion, but he was a crazy guy. People watched more because of the freak factor than the sport factor.
“So if you really sit back and think when was the last champion like him, it really was when Muhammad Ali was fighting. Ali was able to capture the imagination, not just of sports fans, but people all over the world. And I do think David has those same ingredients and tonight I do think he showed that he’s a clever fighter and a smart fighter.”
Advertisement
The road ahead for Haye looks paved with gold. The Londoner’s WBA title victory over Nikolay Valuev is believed to have attracted as many as a million buys on Sky Box Office, a figure that would put him behind only Ricky Hatton in the pay-per-view television business in Britain and could net him close to £5 million. Taking America, as with Hatton, would put Haye on a different level.
Schaefer hopes to start straight-away. The new champion returned home to London last night but is likely to fly to Las Vegas this week for Saturday’s Manny Pacquiao-Miguel Cotto bout, where Schaefer wants to parade him before the media.
Should Haye crack America, it could prove particularly galling to the Klitschko brothers, Vitali and Wladimir, who hold the WBC, WBO, IBF and IBO titles between them. The Ukrainians have long dreamt of success in the US, but their dominant, clinical styles, combined with a lack of credible American challengers have left the American audience cold.
Haye has spent the past year calling out the brothers, but having made them wait twice this year, he can afford to turn his sights elsewhere. He must next face John Ruiz, the former two-times champion, who is the mandatory contender and is believed to have accepted $200,000 (about £120,000) to step aside to enable Haye to meet Valuev. That bout would most likely take place in London, but it could be in late spring, depending on the health of Haye’s hand.
Ruiz, from Boston, beat Adnan Serin on the undercard last night. He has twice lost to Valuev and will be grateful for boxing someone nearer his own size. And he is confident he can beat Haye.
Advertisement
“It will be a nice feeling to have somebody new across the ring and someone who is pretty much my height,” he said. “He’s a dancer. He moved around pretty good and did what he had to do to beat Valuev. My main thing will be to be quicker than him and work out my movement. Just go out there and beat him.”
Sauerland, the German promotional company, has options on Haye’s next three bouts, but is unlikely to force him into a rematch with Valuev. With the company hoping to expand globally — with boxers such as Mikkel Kessler and Arthur Abraham in the super-middleweight Super Six tournament, alongside Carl Froch — it could prove more lucrative to have Haye as a partner in the long run.