What made me think of this was David Haye’s mentioning his in grown toe nail against Klitschko. At the time I was a teenager, and I thought it was such a sissy excuse for a poor performance. In hindsight, with growing older and several ingrown toenails and some surgical operations to fix them, trying to fight with a bad one could certainly hamper performance. I’m not saying he would have beaten Wlad or even that it’s validated - who knows if it’s true.. but if it was, it definitely couldn’t have made things easier. …and you guessed it, right now I have one that I can hardly walk on, hence this memory coming back to me!
There's no doubt that it was a real injury, remember he took off his boot and showed everyone right there in the ring. It was just such a unpalatable situation with him not wanting to pull out then going through with it while struggling to move and put weight on it. Regardless of the veracity of it, Haye could never live that down. He never was able to secure a rematch with Wlad due to how embarrassing the whole ordeal was.
The problem was Haye had already faked an injury to get out of fighting Wlad on a previous date. I think the television partner Haye was linked with went bankrupt or something and he wasn't going to get extra money so instead of just admitting that he faked an injury and the fight was cancelled. That is why people gave Haye **** because he had already cried wolf once before. Then to top it all off he showed up to the fight after years of talking **** about brutal KO's etc. and literally didn't even try because he was scared of being countered on his Glass Jaw. He didn't even try to land a hail mary punch until the last couple of rounds. The fight was an awful stinker one of the worst and Haye was the reason why.
What was the original injury he pulled out for? And are you sure he faked that first one? I could see the pressure on him not to pull out again if he already had to postpone it once before.
I always thought Golota gettin' a cardiac arrest after Lewis poleaxed him in one round wuz no joke tbh
Pretty sure Setanta Sports went bankrupt and was in financial trouble. Haye claimed a 'back injury' which are almost impossible to 'prove'. Fight was postponed to a later date. Either way Haye massively overpromised and under delivered at Heavyweight. Then, after all the lackluster fights his supporters on here said "YoU ReAllY Didn't THinK HaYe WaS SeRioUs DiD YoU!!!!!!!!!" It was embarrassing for them for sure.
Ingrown toe nali!?!? HMMMPH. In the war I got my right foot blown off. I single handedly fought off the enemy for 2 hours, then ran 8 miles to inform the troops to pull back. Potentially saving hundreds of young men's lives. Damn foot still hasn't grown back.
The issue I have though is that Haye was dancing around the ring just fine so it wasn't his feet or toes that were the issue it was his reluctance to let his hands go and engage. Obviously vs Bellew the injury played a huge part and that was a legit excuse. But the toe excuse I always thought was BS because he was moving around the ring just fine.