Have you seen his corner between the rounds. Haye was pumping like somebody shortly after rescued from drowning.
And he went out there and had his best round of the fight. Using the amount of movement Haye used is exhausting, even more than usual because the guy he was eluding happened to be the biggest Heavyweight champion of all time. I was disapointed with Haye in this fight in several ways, but stamina wasn't one of them. He impressed me and exceeded my expectations in terms of conditioning. What I was disapointed with was his ring IQ. He had the right plan, use a lot of lateral movement, potshot him. But he simply didn't turn up the tempo/workrate enough to put the fight away, had he even just had a slightly higher workrate, this fight could of been a shutout. He should of realized this. I think he was afraid of gassing late if he threw more but he needs to trust his conditioning if he wants to beat the higher level guys of the division.
I should have posted my prediction because it ended up pretty spot on. My mates were typically believing the hype and saying Haye would finish him in three rounds, but I thought it'd go the distance with Haye winning a close decision. I did think he would do a bit better than that, but I thought the stereotypical German scoring would make it tight.
The fight was awful. Valuev looked as if he lost a half a step, and he was already slow to begin with. Haye lost whatever credibility he had as crowd pleasing puncher. Well Bonecrusher held Tyson. Valuev did not hold. Haye ran the entire fight. This to me suggests he knows he can't hand with a medium level hitter. By the way Haye did not look very good vs a shop worn Barrett either. The fight was very poor. Haye beat a declining Valuev via majority decision by running. I'm glad you're impressed
Kind of hard to tell if he's in decline or what...after all what is there to compare a decline to? He never really looked worth a damn. He traded 100% on his size and not on any fighting skills or natural attributes, except again, for his size.
And the occasional gift decision. Holyfield, Donald and Ruiz were about as impressive as Haye was against Valuev. It's not that long ago when Valuev had supposedly his best ever performance against a stationary punching bag in Sergei Lyakhovich.
Thing is, I think Valuev might prove a pretty frustrating opponent for Ali. He would no doubt beat him, but I don't think he would look too good doing it. Personally, I had hoped for more aggression and risk taking from Haye. But with his previous history of stamina issues I can see why he would want to play it safe with a mountain of man like Valuev. Tactically, the fight was kind of interesting. Haye played a pretty good chess match. Considering Valuev's history with decisions he perhaps played it a bit close, even if I personally thought he won hands down. I think Haye's movement and defence looked good, though. I'm interested to see what he can accomplsih against the Klits.
Where are Ring Magazine likley to rank Haye when the dust settles from this fight? At the verry least he would take Valuevs old spot.