Prior to January 2016, David Haye hadn’t been in a boxing ring for nearly three and a half years. He’d become the first British heavyweight champion of the world since Lennox Lewis by defeating the monstrous Nikolai Valuev for the WBA title, and was the biggest mainstream boxing star the country had produced in years. But after losing the belt to Wladimir Klitschko, a temporary retirement and a series of injuries derailed his momentum. A new generation of British heavyweights — led by Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury — took his thunder and most fight fans thought we’d seen the end of Haye’s in-ring career.
But in November 2015 he announced he was returning. In a comeback fight this January, he knocked out heavyweight Mark de Mori in just two minutes. And while cynics might question de Mori’s limited previous opposition, and claim Haye was just after a payday, it reminded everyone just how dangerous his punching power is and put him back on the map. Anthony Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn is already talking about a match up between the two, and notorious loudmouth veteran Shannon Briggs has verbally worked his way into being the next opponent on Haye’s schedule. But first up for Haye is Kosovan giant Arnold Gjergjaj, who is again a relative unknown, but has an impressive unbeaten record and the height and weight advantage.
The fight takes place on May 21 at the O2 Arena and we caught up with Haye at his gym in South London whilst he prepared for the bout. He seemed both healthier and more mature, and at only 35 is young enough to still get back to boxing’s highest heights. He was in good spirits, joking around with gym-mates Josh Taylor and Conrad Cummings (two hotly-tipped young fighters who share Haye’s trainer Shane McGuigan), and had a lot to say about Gjergjaj, Briggs, and boxing's big revival.
You've only been back for one fight but it feels like your momentum has picked up from where it left off in 2012. Has having three years off made you feel better, and helped your body heal? Has it even made you feel younger?
I don’t know if I feel younger, but I feel a lot more pain free in training than I did five years ago. I used to very much struggle with training in terms of injuries. It was just constant agony, I was always just dealing with some kind of injury. But that’s not the case now, so I am actually enjoying training a lot more. I’m able to focus more on my punch variety, as opposed to just getting through the session, and having to go to my physio, or putting ice on myself as I’ve just busted myself up. I definitely feel this is the way of the future for me. If I’m going to be wanting to fight regularly, I can’t train the way I used to. I literally needed six months off after each fight, because I put my body through so much trauma. But that’s no longer the case and I am looking at fighting three times this year. That’s a big jump up in activity. It would usually take me three years for three fights, if you look at my schedule.
It seems like not too many people know an awful lot about your next opponent, Arnold Gjergjaj. How much do you actually know about him?
I don’t know too much at all to be honest. I know he’s had 29 fights, I know he’s never lost. I know he hasn’t fought any big names that I can compare results to. He’s taller than me, and he weighs more than me, so I’m expecting a tough fight, I’m training for a ten round fight. But once I hit anyone on the chin, the fight’s over. So I’ve practiced a lot of punching variations, combinations, a lot of head movement, a lot of defensive stuff. And I’m enjoying training for the first time in many, many years.
Gjergjaj is 6ft 5 inches – is it important that you fight someone taller than you?
Yeah, all of the top lads are 6ft 6 inches and above, and there’s no reason for me to fight anyone under 6 foot. One of the stipulations for this fight was to make sure I was fighting someone undefeated, and someone who was taller than myself. I thought that would give me good experience for when one of those big fighters came for me. I need to be used to punching upwards. Fortunately we managed to find someone who fit the bill. He’s got the second longest winning streak in boxing today. He's second only to Deontay Wilder’s 36-0, in third place you’ve got Tyson Fury on 25-0, and Louis Ortiz is at 25-0 as well, so he’s in good company. But I’m looking at putting a swift end to that.
So are you looking for another early finish then?
I’m looking for any kind of finish. I’ll be looking for the finish in the first 10 minutes of the fight. Whether I get it is a different matter. That depends on what he does.
"Shannon Briggs has talked himself into getting violently knocked out, the public want to see this old man get beat up."
Shannon Briggs is fighting on your undercard on May 21st. He’s had a few words about you…
Just three words normally! "Let’s go champ!" They’re the ones he has.
What’s it like being dragged into a war of words like this?
It’s quite annoying. I found it quite amusing when he was harassing Wladimir Klitschko, then he was harassing Deontay Wilder, and I was laughing at those guys having to deal with this big buffoon, screaming in their face. Then he started doing it to me and it wasn't as fun! But he came over to the UK and caused such a stir that the public demanded that I actually fought him. So they want to see this old man get beat up and I’ll do it. He's 44 years of age but credit to him, he’s ranked seventh by the WBA, he’s won his last eight fights, so if he wants to do it, we can do it.
Since you’ve come back, you’ve seemed a lot more considered and mature – but does Briggs running his mouth make you want to bring out the old David Haye?
I could feel the old Hayemaker coming out when he got into my face [at the Joshua-Martin weigh-in], but I used every fibre of my being to restrain smashing him in the face with my bare fist! That wouldn’t be good for anyone, him or me! As I’ve got older I’ve mellowed out a little bit, so I try to just laugh it off. But he’s talked himself into getting violently knocked out, so I’m hoping everyone is looking forward to that.
Do you think it’s a bit embarrassing? He’s quite a bit older than you, yet you’re acting like the bigger man?
Exactly, he’s nearly ten years older. He’s an interesting character. He’s screamed and shouted about wanting the big fight for a long time and he’s got it now. It’s another thing actually turning up for a boxing match with someone who punches as hard as me. If he thinks he took a hell of a beating against Vitali, wait until he fights someone who punches as accurate as me, and so much harder that Vitali Klitschko. Vitiali was an effective guy and whatnot, but he wasn’t a one punch specialist. All you gotta do is look at his fight against Derek Chisora — he didn’t hurt him once in 12 rounds. It was a very competitive fight up until the 12th round. He couldn’t knock Chisora down. He won it comfortably on points but he didn’t put a dent in him. And my whole plan to fight directly after that was to fight Chisora and knock him out in five rounds. I thought that would be a big enough statement to the world. And that’s exactly what I did, knock him out in five rounds. I proved my superior punch power, and Shannon Briggs is going to be tasting that when I get in the ring with him.
Moving on to after you’ve fought Briggs, Eddie Hearn has been talking about Joshua fighting you next spring – does that timetable work for you?
Yeah. I mean, what option have I got? I can’t force him to fight me. He fights me when him and his team are ready. Career-wise it's best for him because before next year he can get some more world class experience under his belt. From a selfish point of view, I’d like to fight him next, but realistically I get that his team have got themselves a 16 fight novice with a title wrapped round his waist. And the question marks are still there. Sure he can punch, but what happens when someone who is genuinely world class start throwing some punches back? You know what happened when he had a domestic guy, Dillian Whyte, throwing punches back at him. He didn’t like it. But since that point he hasn’t had anyone throwing punches. Charles Martin didn’t throw any punches, so we need to know what happens. He needs to know. But when he does fight a few world class guys, and he’s in the mix, feeling the heat in the ring, and manages to win that fight, then that’ll bring him and his team into a fight against me with good confidence.
A lot has been made about the differences between Joshua and Tyson Fury, with Anthony Joshua hailed as the sort of role model that Tyson Fury isn't. How important – in your eyes – is it for a world champion to be a role model, too?
It wholly depends on the individual. Being a role model for the sake of being a role model, just because that’s what you’re supposed to do, you end up getting found out. I think be yourself. A fighter should be himself, not try to be something he’s not and what’ll happen will happen. I’ve said stuff in the past that I wouldn’t consider saying today. But that only comes with time. Ten years ago I didn’t know what I know now. Ten years ago all I cared about was getting maximum pay-per-view sales, that was it! But as you get older you realise there’s a little bit more to life. Maybe you’ve got to look at your long term legacy, and see how you’re perceived by youngsters coming through, and try to be a little bit more mindful of the things you say.
Who do you think is the most exciting out of the other young British fighters right now? Chris Eubank Jr? Kell Brook? Anthony Crolla?
Eubank Jr for me. He’s shown time and time again that he’s a world class fighter. And these two guys [motions to the other guys training in the gym], Josh Taylor and Conrad Cummings.
You’ve decided to give Nick Blackwell, who received serve head injuries fighting Chris Eubank Jr, some of the revenue from your upcoming fight, right?
Yeah, so the money I receive from ticket sales, I’ll give them 10% of that. Hopefully that helps. As a lot of people anticipated after getting an injury like that, he’s retired.
Do you ever fear of something like that happening when you step into the ring?
No. I don’t think any boxer does, to be honest. It’s just one of those things. It’s like a motor racer worrying he’s going to be in a car crash, or a rock climber constantly worrying that he’s going to fall off the mountain face. These things happen in contact sport. Statistically, you’d be very unlucky to get a serious injury like that. But someone has to be that unlucky person. And unfortunately it was Nick Blackwell. But it’s good to know that he’s up and about, that’s really good.
"Boxing is a very working class sport. When I was a kid we weren’t a family that could afford to pay for something like Box Nation or a Sky Sports pay per view."
You’ve also been working on the petition for Muhammad Ali to receive an honorary knighthood – can you tell us about that?
Obviously I’ve been a massive fan of Muhammad Ali my whole life, he’s the catalyst for me wanting to be a boxer. Knowing that he’s got an amazing exhibition on at the O2 Arena, and hearing that he might come over for that, I thought, what is the highest honour we could bestow on him? And the highest we have as Britain to honour a non-UK resident would be an honorary knighthood, like Bono has received, like Pele, like Kevin Spacey. David Cameron’s offices wrote me a letter saying they are going to put that to him and he’ll get back in good time. Boris Johnson is well and truly behind it. We’ve had 25,000 people reply to the petition, which I’m over the moon with.
We saw the debut of Conor Benn in April, following in his father's iconic footsteps. How would you feel if your son chose to go into boxing 10 years from now?
I’d support him no matter what he wanted to do. Fortunately he doesn’t really want to do boxing at this stage. He’s more into tennis. He’s probably a little smarter than I was! But yeah, my parents supported me in anything I wanted to do. If I wanted to be an astronaut, they would have supported me. They said you can do whatever you want in life, as long as you are the best at it. They assisted me in every way possible to becoming the best boxer.
Is it important that there is top class British boxing on free TV?
I was able to become a boxing fan because it was on ITV and BBC when I was a kid, so I got to see these big fights. Unfortunately, a lot of today's world class boxing is behind a paywall, and a lot of the young boxing fans don’t have that money. Boxing is a very working class sport. When I was a kid we weren’t a family that could afford to pay for something like Box Nation or a Sky Sports pay-per-view. But everyone has a TV. I definitely think it’s good to keep growing boxing by having it on terrestrial television. It’s one thing watching a fight the next day on YouTube but there’s nothing better than watching a live fight where you don’t know what’s going to happen.
Finally, you were photographed attending WWE Raw when it was in London recently. They’ve had a lot of boxers make appearances of the years, from Tyson to Mayweather. Would you ever want to get involved in pro-wrestling?
Maybe, I wouldn’t mind that. I met the champ, Roman Reigns, and I thought “I’m bigger than you!”. I thought he was going to be massive! They always look bigger on TV, I always assumed they were about 6ft 8 inches, but they’re not that big.
Do you think you could take him?
Maybe, he’s very athletic. Let’s wait until this boxing stuff is over!
David Haye takes on Arnold ‘The Cobra’ Gjerjaj at The O2 on May 21. Watch #HayeDay exclusively live and free-to-air from 8pm on Dave, for tickets visit theo2.co.uk.
