David Haye, the World Heavyweight champion destroyed John Ruiz on Saturday to keep hold of his WBA title. It looked like it would be an early night with Ruiz down twice in the first round, however Haye did something more devastating than a quick knock out, he punished Ruiz for nine gruelling rounds.

Okay, it is Monday morning and I am sitting here looking back at this weekends fights. You may ask why I did not post this on Sunday, well to tell you the truth I needed a day to reflect on just what implications Saturdays fight had on the boxing scene.

One gripe with Haye being a heavyweight champion was that he had never actually been tested by a true heavyweight. I will even agree that Haye ‘cheated’ other heavyweight boxers by leapfrogging his way to a title shot. However, Haye was undisputed Cruiserweight champion and had a couple of fights at Heavyweight leading up the Valuev fight. Former WBA Heavyweight champion Roy Jones Jr, lept straight in to a world title fight with no justification for his ranking. So I am going to cut Haye some slack on this one.

John Ruiz is a two time World Heavyweight champion and has fought eleven world title fights, so you cannot question the Latin Americans pedigree. Having fought the legend Evander Holyfield three times; one win, one draw and one loss, Ruiz was the Heavyweight test we had all been waiting for.

Now I could describe each round and give my views on what happened, however if you have not watched the fight by now then shame on you. Get yourself round to a friend who has Sky TV and watch a repeat or find someone who has a copy recorded. You do need to see the fight for yourself to appreciate just how devastating this win was for Haye.

Let us put this in to picture, Haye was not in great shape for the fight. Physically he looked good, having only gained a four pounds since his last outing Haye is naturally growing in to the Heavyweight division. The problem for Haye was the lack of preparation in the ring, due to an cut sustained from sparring with B.J. Flores, the champ was forced to forego any sparring in the final four weeks before the fight.

The lack of sparring preparation showed in the fight and Haye was caught more than you would have expected, his lack of head movement was evident from throughout the fight and kept Ruiz’s hopes alive for a shock knock out.

“I’m always unhappy when David is getting hit,” Booth said. “Boxing is about hitting without getting hit.

“The only way to work your defence is by sparring, If you can’t spar, your defence suffers.”

Ruiz’ new trainer Miguel Diaz brought out a side to the Quiet man we had not seen in years. Gone was the mauling, clinching and elbows we normally see from John Ruiz, instead we saw a fighter willing to go after his opponent to make for an exciting fight. Now, unfortunately for this fight it was the wrong tactics completely. Ruiz would have faired alot better trying to tie up Haye and forcing him in to a dirty war.

Diaz and Ruiz had admitted before hand that they had only watched the Haye-Valuev fight in preparation for Saturday and they had expected Haye to act the same way he did that night in Nuremberg. I believed that this was a ruse and they were bluffing to put the Hayemaker camp in to a false sense of security. Sadly this was not the case and Diaz had made a devastating error of judgement in the preparation for a fight against the British favourite.

Come on Diaz! Even my wife knows how David Haye fights, “He likes to throw those two straight punch combinations doesn’t he. Look that’s how he knocks them down all the time”. Thank you dear, yes even my wife knows that David Haye will stand in front of you and pop off a nice clean two punch combination to your head, with beautiful accuracy penetrating your guard if you are not constantly moving your head.

Haye had Ruiz down in the first round twice, however the second of the knock downs was a bit cheeky as the Hayemaker had caught the challenger round the back of the head as he was turning to run away.

“He (Referee Guillermo Pérez Pineda) said it was a deliberate foul and, if I’m honest, it was,” Said David Haye “The WBA has a rule that three knockdowns in a round and it’s over, so I went for it.”

Haye went on to put Ruiz on the canvas four times before Ruiz’ trainer waved the flag to call it a day after two minutes and one second in the ninth round.

“It was drilled into me the whole way through training camp – keep hitting. If he takes it, great, hit him again, hit him again, hit him again…” Said Haye,

I believe that David Haye could have put Ruiz down many more times during the fight had he been more composed. The Hayemaker could sense that Ruiz was going to be easy pickings after the second knock down and from that moment on all the WBA Champion wanted to do was to offload a signature Hayemaker to end the fight.

“It was a bit scrappy,” Continued the Hayemaker “but the crowd seemed to love it,”

The crowd loved it indeed, with a 20,000 capacity turn out for the fight David Haye is quickly becoming the man to step in to Ricky Hattons shoes. Sadly with only little over a year before David Haye calls it a day and retires from the sport, we may not get enough time to see many more nights like Saturday.

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