Before a big fight we talk a lot.
We listen to a lot of talk.
And we think about previous champions, previous big fights, previous dramatic action.
Will this be a short fight?
Could David Haye knock him out in six rounds?
Maybe, if Klitschko doesn’t knock him out first.
How likely is the latter scenario?
Not very.
Because Wladimir Klitschko likes to fight from distance behind his left jab.
When The Greatest was asked how he would have fought Mike Tyson, Ali said, “Stick and move. Box him and tire him out and then knock him out in the tenth.”
When Tyson was young he used to throw lots of fast combination punches in the dressing room, come into the ring without a robe, all fired-up and sweaty and scary, and knock guys out in the first or second round. Most of them were bums but the manner of those demolitions helped to build Tyson’s legend.
One night, when we were at QPR, Mark Jacob and I bumped into Mickey Duff and Morris Keston, a famous Spurs fan.
Mickey said something that surprised me : “I handpicked Tyson’s first 18 opponents. When you’ve got a guy like Tyson, you don’t wanna put him in with people you think he can beat, you put him in with people you know he can beat.”
Then Mickey told us something I’d already figured out : “Mike Jacobs and Bill Cayton were great managers. Mike and his wife Lorraine knew how to talk to Mike, control him.”
My Dad was an amateur middleweight who sparred with pros in Liverpool and Dad always said, “A good big ‘un will always beat a good little ‘un.”
Lennox Lewis says, “A good big man is supposed to beat a good small man but David Haye is a diamond in the rough. If there’s anybody can do it, he can do it.”
Klitschko is 17 stone and six foot six.
Haye is 15 stone and six three.
Klitschko was 20 when he won the Olympics superheavyweight title in Atlanta in 1996. He’s been around for a helluva long time. He’s 35 now and a very smart man.
Does he fancy a punch-up?
Or does Klitschko want to knock Haye out before a punch-up can get started?
The fight is in Hamburg and the crowd will be about 45,000.
It’s a unification fight and a mega-massive opportunity for David Haye.
I hope he wins.
This boxing website is a good one.