By Shaun Brown
David Haye has told Boxing Scene that an upcoming documentary will show why he has only been able to fight five times in the last six years.
The former cruiserweight champion became WBA World heavyweight champion when he defeated the seven-foot, 316 lb Nikolay Valuev in 2009 to become the first Briton to hold a world heavyweight title since Lennox Lewis in 2003.
After that night in Nuremberg Haye went on to fight John Ruiz, Audley Harrison, Wladimir Klitschko and Dereck Chisora with only the once dominant Ukranian putting another loss on the Londoner’s record.
Haye (26-2, 24 KOs) retired from boxing in 2011 before returning in 2012 to fight Dereck Chisora. After withdrawing from fighting Tyson Fury in 2013, Haye had to undergo surgery to reconstruct his right shoulder forcing doctors to advise him to retire from a glittering career.
Over two years on and ‘The Hayemaker’ returns to the ring on January 16, 2016 at London’s O2 Arena against Australia’s Mark De Mori (30-1-2, 26 KOs), with a view to fighting three times a year. Haye says the documentary, due to be aired next year, will show viewers that before his surgery he was fighting as often as his body would let him.
“I wasn’t in any physical position to fight more than once a year,” said the 35-year-old.
“I was fighting as often as it was humanly possible to fight. I had a lot of trauma with my body. You’ll know about it in the documentary and that will document it all. It’s been about six years in the making now. They’re working on that at the moment and then you’ll see exactly why I was fighting once a year. I just was not physically able to do it.
“It was taking me 4-5 months to recover from the training camps, not the fights. The fights were easy. Now doing the training I’m doing with Shane [McGuigan] I don’t believe that will be the case. I believe I’ll be able to fight a lot more regularly. In an ideal world I’ll fight three times a year, that’s the schedule I’ve got for myself and I really want to stick to that.”
David Haye takes on Mark de Mori at The O2 on January 16, for tickets visit axs.com. Follow @mrdavidhaye for more information. #HayemakerIsBack
Shaun Brown is Boxing Scene’s UK News Editor. Follow him on Twitter @sbrown2pt0. Contact him at sbrownboxing@gmail.com
