November 7th sees David Haye travel to Nuremberg, Germany to face off against a real life Goliath and the current WBA heavyweight champion Nikolai Valuev. A true David and Goliath fight perhaps as the 6 foot 3 Londoner goes head to chest with the man known as The Beast from the East and standing at 7 foot.
In today's world, heavyweight boxing isn't living in America (despite what Rocky 4 may have taught us) but has gone to mainland Europe, the real life Ivan Dragos can be found in the Klitschkos, the top 2 fighters in the world. Heavy handed, tall, rangy and able to use their physical size to dominate most of the other fighters out there, recently Vitali Klitschko (the older of the two brothers) brought tears to the latest American to attempt to beat them (Christobal Arreola is actually a Mexican living in the states). A fight between Wladimir Klitschko and David Haye fell through when Setanta (the British pay TV company) fell down and went bankrupt so the fight was scrapped (many not buying Haye's official 'I hurt my back in training' line announced 2 days before the fight was set to take place).
Aside from the Klitschko's the WBA title is held by Valuev (or so we all think) who lost it a few years back to Ruslan Chagaev, who contracted hepatitis B and wasn't allowed to fight in a rematch in Switzerland due to it. The WBA had previously seen Valuev fight John Ruiz for the interim fight (the second time they met) with Valuev winning clearly to take the claim of interim champion. It would appear he's now been upgraded to the regular championship position due to Chagaev losing to Wladimir Klitschko...on the date Haye was meant to fight Wlad.
Confused yet? Well this is boxing and it is confusing.
In today's world, heavyweight boxing isn't living in America (despite what Rocky 4 may have taught us) but has gone to mainland Europe, the real life Ivan Dragos can be found in the Klitschkos, the top 2 fighters in the world. Heavy handed, tall, rangy and able to use their physical size to dominate most of the other fighters out there, recently Vitali Klitschko (the older of the two brothers) brought tears to the latest American to attempt to beat them (Christobal Arreola is actually a Mexican living in the states). A fight between Wladimir Klitschko and David Haye fell through when Setanta (the British pay TV company) fell down and went bankrupt so the fight was scrapped (many not buying Haye's official 'I hurt my back in training' line announced 2 days before the fight was set to take place).
Aside from the Klitschko's the WBA title is held by Valuev (or so we all think) who lost it a few years back to Ruslan Chagaev, who contracted hepatitis B and wasn't allowed to fight in a rematch in Switzerland due to it. The WBA had previously seen Valuev fight John Ruiz for the interim fight (the second time they met) with Valuev winning clearly to take the claim of interim champion. It would appear he's now been upgraded to the regular championship position due to Chagaev losing to Wladimir Klitschko...on the date Haye was meant to fight Wlad.
Confused yet? Well this is boxing and it is confusing.
|
|