‘I’ll come back… just like Ali did’
DAVID HAYE was lying on an operating table just hours after he was stopped by Tony Bellew.
The former heavyweight champion needed his Achilles tendon putting back together after it ruptured during their clash in March last year.
The very next day he was in the gym, working on his upper body, using a special machine to activate the muscles in his lower legs with electricity so they did not deteriorate while his Achilles recovered.
A rematch was pencilled in for December and Haye was ready for revenge, but as he was trotting down some steps last November during a routine workout he slipped and grabbed the railing. His bicep muscle tore and he was back on the surgeon’s table. More painstaking rehab work was needed.
Finally tonight they go again at the O2 Arena as Haye, at 37, has to prove he is not finished.
“All the great champions have come back after they were washed up,” Haye said as he sat in his gym in London’s Vauxhall after another brutal strength and conditioning session last month. “The ultimate was Muhammad Ali. After losing to Joe Frazier and Ken Norton, he then goes and beats them and then beats George Foreman when they thought he had no chance.
“I’m not saying I’m Ali, of course I’m not. What makes you remembered is coming back when you’re not at your best, not in your prime, and yet you come back to perform at your highest level.”
Haye knows he must avenge his defeat by Liverpool’s Bellew tonight and look good doing so or it is over. He says he will quit otherwise.
“It’s about winning,” he said. “It’s trying to prove you’re the best. I was the fastest runner at school, was the best fighter at school, the best fighter in London. It’s about being No1.
“Even with a 37-year-old body I feel on the night if I’m tip-top I can beat anyone.”
Haye has based himself in his home city after training in Miami for the first meeting. He has also changed trainers, with famed Cuban Ismael Salas taking the reins.
Plus the meticulous Ruben Tabares has returned as his strength and conditioning coach, helping Haye work on the timing that was off in the first fight.
But there are still question marks over Haye’s fitness, with rumours he went into the first fight injured, something he dismisses. He insists he is 100 per cent, but injuries have followed him throughout his career.
“You do think, ‘Is there some kind of force that’s trying to keep me from doing what I’m doing?’
“But even in my worst night against Bellew I somehow came out with more praise than if I’d knocked him out in a round. That was something I never anticipated.”
Therein lies another reason Haye has yet to walk away. Despite all the bad-boy acts, there is a desire to be loved.
“As long as the boxing fraternity respects my body of work, that’s all that counts for me.”
Bellew is motivated to win by the school bullies who tell his 12-year-old son Corey he is going to get knocked out.
He said: “Kids are kids and they can be nasty. When your kid is going to school and gets told, ‘Your dad is getting knocked out on Saturday’, it’s horrible, it’s not nice.
“He just smiles but it broke my heart when I was told, I felt like crying when I was told that was going on.”
Bellew vs Haye is exclusively live on Sky Sports Box Office tonight from 6pm. 4. Which British runner won a bronze medal in the women’s 800m at the World Indoor Championships in Birmingham? 6. Which English League Two football team are nicknamed the Mariners? 8. In what year did Raymond van Barneveld win his first Embassy snooker world title? 10. Which Swedish tennis player won his third Australian Open men’s singles title in 1988?