BBC article on Haye fighting Harrison - worth a read

Yes you can. He uses an irrelevant comparison with Joe Louis. The only way it would be relevant was if Haye had knocked out Wlad last year and was defending his title 4 times this year but not against Vitali and people were angry with him for taking on Harrison.

Louis was undisputed champ, defending his title 4 times or more per year. Haye has scraped past one alphabet title holder and calls himself the heavyweight champion of the world and yet only fights twice a year and this year will not have fought a guy ranked in the top 10 by most boxing journalists, coaches, fans etc.

Dirs also implies he will make FAR more than against Adamek. Adamek would be massive in NYC and get HBO PPV coverage. So it might not make Haye as much but the idea it would be hugely less is wide of the mark.

And lastly the hypocrisy of Haye and going back on what he said he stood for is the most galling. The fact Booth derided this fight months back and that Haye had claimed not to be like the Klits taking easy fights for easy money.

You can justifiably argue with almost everything in that article. And again, the money is not something that fans should be expected to give a **** about. We support fighters who entertain, and try to make the best fights. We don't usually support them by virture of how business savvy they are or how much they earn.

So if you want to make a fortune by taking easy fights, then cool, but the fans have every reason and right not to support you as a fighter for that mentality.

 

I am pretty surprised that this fight will sell. I just don't get it but I guess it's the same as something like pop music and just the general media controlled world at the moment. Like someone said earlier, the media could hype a fight between a snail and a tortoise and it'd sell.

 

Bet you watch it,and pay for it if needs be:deal

 

well i dont give a **** who doesn't think this is a valid fight for a world title.
Haye has won the title and its up to him who he fights. He is entitled to make a few easy £'s. He earned that the day he won the title.
All the fools who are slagging Haye off are just idiots. Its a business....simple as. If you actually feel let down by Haye then its your own fault for getting drawn in.
Haye is in it for the money. Good for him.

 

Agree with you mate i know the bout is **** and he could fo got a more crediable opponent but people have just got to crack on now and deal with it.

G

 

:good

 

read that article this morning.

I usually like Ben Dirs stuff, its quite funny, but I think he is a mile off with this one.

Haye fighting Harrison is nothing like Louis or Ali fighting some alleged duffers. Haye promised big fights. Haye called out both Klits. I understand fights can't always be made due to background stuff on negotiations, but we expected a decent opponent. A valid opponenet. A credible opponent.

Instead we get this crap.

Louis and Ali fought almost, if not all, every big name in the course of their careers. Haye has not shown the same inclination since being at HW.

David Haye was my fave fighter once Erik Morales retired, but he has lost my respct after this.

And Ben Dirs can kid himself that this fight is justified all he likes. It's not.

 

Nailed it but you also forget Haye's lines of he won't be taking duff opponents and only has interest in the best opponents, that money is secondary to legacy, his bogus excuses for not taking on the Klitschko's. It's an accumulation of factors that makes me angry with this fight.

 

It's not even about Haye saying one thing and doing another, but this is an awful fight. Harrison wouldn't even beat Chisora or Sexton, either of them would be a better opponent, at least if he fought one of them he could say he was fighting the next best British fighter, in a fight for a British audience.

This article is a joke. He's making out that this fight is ok, that people will tune in because it will be such a freak show. That Harrison is so laughable an opponent, it's worth £15 to tune in to see how bad it is, and that makes it ok.

Why not just throw Haye in against a midget then, maybe 3 midgets in a row. How about against two Welters in a tag match?

And this is the same response I've seen everywhere from the British boxing press. Everybody is following the official line on this one, giving us the old "It's a business" crap. Nobody is saying anything critical of Haye backing off the Klitschkos, or saying how much a lemon Harrison is.

It's feckin shameful. Has anybody seen any British source say anything negative about this fight?

 

The article really does miss the point. You can't talk about this fight without mentioning the Klitschko negotiations, but sadly the only people who know anything about what went on are boxing geeks. Even worse, the boxing reporters here all seem to be casual fans at best. The ones that aren't are so far up Haye's arse you'll never hear them utter a bad word against him

You're one of a very small minority who think Haye is justified in taking this fight. Most of us defended the Ruiz fight, but that was on the grounds that he'd take a legitimate fight after it. Imagine back in 08 if we'd known his heavyweight fights would be Barrett, Valuev, Ruiz and Harrison? We'd all have routed for Valuev

deal:deal

 

this here. the guy is a tool. we used to give him such a ripping on the 606 boards when i was there.
he really is ****.
hes probably improved in the last year but his stuff was so bad it was ****ing laughable. the BBC boxing coverage is embarrassing

 

Right so you follow a sport with the attitude that it's "business" so if none of the big fights ever happened you would be cool with it, because the champs have the right to make easy money? Why bother even following it with that attitude?

If Khan chose to just fight mandatories in the MEN and avoid all the big names, if Calzaghe had never fought Lacy or Kessler, but carried on with the easy money fights in Cardiff, that would be fine with you because they had a belt and it's all buisness?

Of course it is business, but the fighters who people have the most respect for tend to be the ones who also want to prove themselves in their chosen sport and give the fans who make them millionaires great fights.

I don't dislike Haye as a person for this fight, but I lose respect for him within the field of boxing. It's a **** fight and a con job.

 

Good post.

 

:good