Speaking ahead of his upcoming heavyweight fight with reining WBC cruiserweight world champion Tony Bellew, David Hayemaker Haye is preparing as ferociously as physically possible.
Haye has always been a big puncher. It’s one of the reasons why people tune into watch him.
Whatever you think of him as a boxer or indeed as a man, there is no question that he has the power to clean someone’s clock when he hits home.
He’s been consistent in his belief all the way through the build-up to his fight with Tony Bellew that he will knock the Liverpool man out, cold.
Bellew has been knocked down many times in his career, but his heart and courage has always seen him get back up bar one occasion (Adonis Stevenson).
Speaking on Behind The Ropes (full video here) in a Sky Sports pre-fight segment, Haye said he’s been taking some unusual steps to ensure that the knockout of Bellew will be as violent and brutal as possible:
“Don’t get too comfortable in your seat. I’m looking at really clipping him clean. I’m practising flurries on a falling target. I’ve never heard of anyone doing that before but I’m literally punching pads to the floor. Technically, you are not allowed to hit someone when they are on the floor, but if they are falling you can hit them the whole way down to the floor. You are going to see me just looking devastating. You are going to find out exactly what everyone already knows – that I’m the hardest hitting heavyweight on the planet.”
I can only ever recall a couple of times seeing a fighter hit another one while on his way to the floor, or at least in the process of getting knocked out on his feet.
Nigel Benn and David Tua come to mind in those two examples.
Here’s what happened when Tua exacted what David Hayemaker Haye describes of above, on an unfortunate John Ruiz at the time:
