David Haye on the verge of retirement

By Scott Gilfoid: Following his recent knockout defeat at the hands of Tony Bellew on May 5th, former 2-dvsion world champion David Haye is hinting that he’s about to make a retirement announcement. On Wednesday, Haye posted on social media that he’s trying to find the right words to say to his boxing fans about his career.

(Photo credit: David Haye Instagram)

It’s been expected that the 37-year-old Haye (28-4, 26 KOs) would announce his retirement ever since his 5th round knockout loss to Tony Bellew in their rematch on May 5 in London, England. Haye was competitive for the first two rounds, but as soon as he started slugging in the 3rd, he was dropped hard on his backside after getting nailed by a left hook from Bellew. In the 5th, Bellew finished Haye off after knocking him down face first on the canvas. Haye got up but the referee Howard Foster called it off. Before the fight, Haye had said that he would retire if he lost to Bellew (30-2-1, 20 KOs). Once the fight was over, it was a surprise that Haye delayed his decision, which obviously tells you how hard it is for him to walk away from boxing.

Here’s what Haye said on his social media Wednesday:

”Thank you for your kind words of love and support over the last couple of weeks. I look forward to updating you on my plans for the future shortly, sometimes it takes a little while to find the right words 🙏🏾.”

Losing twice to Bellew is a bitter pill for Haye to swallow, as this is someone that he likely would have destroyed in his prime eight years ago. Bellew was never in the same league as Haye when he was in his prime. But with speed burners like Haye and Roy Jones, once they lost their hand speed, they proved to be vulnerable fighters. In Haye’s case, it wasn’t just the loss of speed that hurt his career. It was inactivity and injuries. If you look at Haye’s career, he stopped fighting as often after losing to Wladimir Klitschko in 2011. Haye got a huge payday in the Klitschko fight, which led to him disappearing for 1 year before resurfacing against Dereck Chisora in July 2012. After that fight, Haye suffered a shoulder injury and was out of boxing for close to 4 years. For all intents and purposes, Haye’s career was basically over as a major player at heavyweight. He was always small to begin with for a heavyweight, but the inactivity and the loss of hand speed made him vulnerable. We saw that when he got inside the ring with Bellew, who is little more than a pumped up light heavyweight at best. Bellew is not a real heavyweight, and some say he’s not even a real cruiserweight. He certainly never fought any of the good cruiserweights to prove himself.

I think it’s pretty clear that Haye is going to be retiring. After 16 years as a pro, Haye has a lot to be proud of. He’s a former 2 division world champion with wins over Dereck Chisora, Nikolai Valuev, Enzo Maccarinelli, John Ruiz, Audley Harrison, Jean Marc Mormeck, Monte Barrett, Glen Kelly, and Giacibbe Fragomeni. The high points of Haye’s career were his wins over Maccarinelli, Mormeck and Valuev. The low points were his losses to Klitschko, Bellew and Carl Thompson. Haye’s toe excuse after getting beaten by Wladimir in 2011 wasn’t a good look for him. Losing to Klitschko as badly as he did was embarrassing for Haye, but the toe excuse made the loss even worse. Haye should have taken the high road and given Wladimir credit for his win, but instead he made excuses for the loss, making him look like a poor loser in the process. Another low point for Haye was getting into a brawl with Dereck Chisora at the Vitali Klitschko press conference in 2012. Chisora had just been beaten by Vitali. Haye was trying to get Vitali to fight him, but instead he ended up facing Chisora, who he smashed in five rounds in a mismatch in 2012. That version of Haye likely would have destroyed Tony Bellew, because he still had a little left in the tank in terms of his physical skills at the time. After that fight, the injuries crippled Haye’s career, limiting him to just 4 fights between 2016 and 2018.

It was a mistake for Haye to come back for a second fight with Bellew after he ruptured his right Achilles in his first fight against him in March 2017. The money that Haye got for the rematch with Bellew was obviously too hard to turn down. But in terms of what Haye had left physically, he didn’t belong in the ring with Bellew or anyone for that matter. It wasn’t a case of Bellew being a great fighter. It was more of a case of Haye being physically shot from age, inactivity and injuries. Those three things completely derailed Haye’s career. Some boxing fans believe Bellew won because he’s improving. I think that’s nonsense. Bellew isn’t getting better. He had the perfect opponent in front of him to make him look good in facing a deteriorated Haye.

In retirement, Haye will still be involved in boxing. He’s a promoter and he’ll be working on the career of heavyweight prospect Joe Joyce, who looks like he has a future as a top tier fighter. It should have been Joyce fighting Bellew on May 5 instead of Haye. Bellew would have had his hands full trying to beat the 6’6” Joyce, but that’s obviously not a fight that ‘The Bomber’ would ever agree to at this point in his career. It would be too risky for him facing a guy with that kind of size, power and chin.

Haye was at his best when he was fighting at cruiserweight from 2002 to 2008. In search of bigger paydays, Haye moved up to heavyweight in 2008 and found success beating Monte Barrett, Nikolay Valuev and John Ruiz. However, Haye was clearly not the same fighter at heavyweight as he had been at cruiserweight. His power wasn’t as good, and he lacked the size to dominate in the division as he had at cruiserweight. A lot of boxing fans thought Haye didn’t deserve the victory over Valuev in November 2009. Haye beat the 7-foot Russian Vauev by a controversial 12 round majority decision, but it appeared that he lost and was given a gift decision. From that performance, it was obvious that Haye wasn’t last long before he was eventually beaten. Sure enough, two years later, Wladimir Klitschko defeated Haye by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision in July 2011. Haye’s career never was the same after that fight.
It’s a shame that Haye never got the chance to fight Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua or Deontay Wilder. It would have been interesting to see how he would have done against those fighters. Haye was supposed to fight Fury years ago, but he suffered two injuries that wiped the fight out.

Even if Haye does retire, it wouldn’t be surprising if he’s lured back with a big money offer for a fight against someone like Joshua. It’s no secret that Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn is in need of as many big names as possible for his new DAZN streaming service. The fact that Haye is trying to sign the likes of Adrien Broner shows you how desperate he is. I don’t think it matters that Haye is over-the-hill and has lost his last two fights against Bellew. I can picture Hearn luring Haye back with a big money offer to fight Joshua or perhaps Dillian Whyte. Haye vs. Joshua or Whyte would bring in a lot of subscribers to his DAZN streaming service. I think it would be a one-fight deal, and not the 3-fight offer that Hearn gave to Broner this week. My point is that Haye retiring doesn’t necessarily means he’s going to permanently retire. If one of the promoters like Hearn is willing to throw a lot of money at Haye to use him to help his company bring in boxing fans, I can see him coming out of retirement for a big payday.