David Haye believes he can beat a lot of the current heavyweights
Former two-weight world champion David Haye has told William Hill’s Up Front with Simon Jordan that he seriously believes he can “beat a lot of the guys out there now in the heavyweight division.”
Haye said, “It’s [the door] not fully closed. If I can get my lower legs to do what I know they can do, which they weren’t able to do for probably since 2016.
“If my lower legs can do things I need them to do, I could beat a lot of the guys out there now in the heavyweight division.
“If I can go through training camps – I’m being 100 per cent serious.”
Haye was last seen in a professional boxing ring losing back to back bouts with Tony Bellew, where it was evident his legs had gone.
However, he has participated since in exhibitions bouts against Joe Fournier only three years ago in 2021.
As an amateur, he was the first British boxer to reach the final of the World Amateur Boxing Championships, where he won a silver medal in 2001.
Now 43, Haye competed between 2002 and 2018, winning English and European cruiserweight titles before moving up to world level where he claimed WBC, WBA, WBO and Ring Magazine cruiserweight titles between 2007-2008.
He defeated Welshman Enzo Maccarinelli in March 2008 at The O2 in London to win/retain WBC, WBA, WBO cruiserweight world titles. In November that same year, he moved up to heavyweight.
In 2009, he defeated the Russian giant, Nikolai Valuev, to win the WBA heavyweight title. But then, in 2011, he dared to be great but fell short to dominant world champion, Wladimir Klitschko.
After that, his career never managed to reach the same heights again. A year after losing his world title, he fought in a grudge match with Derek Chisora, which wasn’t licensed by the BBBofC.
He was once contracted to fight an up-and-coming Tyson Fury, but pulled out with an injury.
After almost four years out the ring, he made two comeback fights against overmatched, handpicked opponents, knocking them out with ease.
But then another grudge match came in 2017, this time to former cruiserweight world champion Tony Bellew, who stopped the favourite, Haye, in round 11, after the Bermondsey boxer had snapped his Achilles heel a few rounds earlier.
Haye had surgery and enough recovery time to enter a rematch 14 months later in 2018, but was beaten even more handily and legitimately in just five rounds.
Davis Haye is still very much in the public eye, so if he does return to the ring, there will be a lot of eyes on the event.