THE BOXING
Injuries mean there is no way back for Haye this time
DAVID HAYE says he has quit the ring for good this time.
The former world cruiserweight and heavyweight champion called time on his boxing career for the second time yesterday, admitting injuries have taken their toll.
The 37-year-old walks away from the sport with a record of 28 wins and four defeats as well as the reputation as Britain’s greatest cruiserweight.
But the 6ft 3in Londoner said he felt like a “sedated mule” in his final fight last month – a defeat against Tony Bellew.
His legacy will be of an explosive fighter who became only the second man to win world titles at both cruiserweight and heavyweight when he toppled Russian Nikolay Valuev in 2009.
“The boxing gods have spoken,” said the Hayemaker yesterday.
“They will no longer protect me with the freakish speed and power I used to possess. And without these God-given gifts I completely lose my edge.
Dream
“For eight years everything ran smoothly.
“I had 25 fights and became the first-ever British boxer to unify the cruiserweight division.
“I then achieved my childhood dream when I beat Nikolay Valuev, the ‘Beast from the East’, in a real David and Goliath match.
“Lifting that world heavyweight championship meant I’d fulfilled a promise I’d made to my mum, Jane, at the age of three.”
Haye lost to Wladimir Klitschko in July 2011 and retired afterwards, only to reverse his decision and then go on to hammer Dereck Chisora a year later.
“It was in the second half of my career where I discovered what it meant to fight and be a fighter,” he said.
“In the past five years I have snapped both biceps, my rotator cuff and my Achilles tendon.
“All four were potentially career-ending and each of them required operations with months of intense rehabilitation.
“The biggest physical challenge I had to face, however, was spinal surgery in March 2015. I herniated a disc in my lower back 10 years ago and years of intense training wore this disc away.
“This caused fragments of disc to push into my spinal nerve passage, resulting in chronic pain and loss of function in both legs.
“And an operation was required to put a two-centimetre metal cage between two vertebrae and implant two metal rods with screws and bone grafts to fuse it all together. I kept that private.”
Haye returned again in January 2016 and beat the hapless duo of Mark de Mori and Arnold Gjergjaj before facing Bellew, who moved up to heavyweight.
He ruptured his Achilles in their first meeting before an 11th-round stoppage and was then destroyed in just five by Bellew in the rematch last month.
Haye said: “For fans it must have been like supporting their favourite horse at the National, only to see their stallion stumble out the gates like a sedated mule at the donkey derby.”
Outside the ring, Haye already promotes heavyweight prospect and Commonwealth champion Joe Joyce, who has his fifth professional fight on Friday at York Hall, and will now focus on building his stable.
He added: “Since October 1990 I have been a boxer. That’s nearly 10,000 days of eating and sleeping boxing, now I’m ready to close this chapter in my life.
“This is not the end of my story. It’s the start of something new.”