Haye crowned WBA champion

Haye: champion of the world

DAVID AND GOLIATH
WBA Heavyweight title
David Haye v Nikolai Valuev
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David Haye produced a perfect performance to be crowned WBA heavyweight champion.

The Londoner did the impossible and out-pointed giant Russian Nikolai Valuev over 12 cat-and-mouse rounds in Nuremberg.

Few gave him a hope of lasting the distance - never mind winning on the scorecards - but after the first judge could not split them at 114-114, the final two gave it to Haye 116-112.

The moment it was confirmed Haye screamed to the heavens, his lifelong dream suddenly fulfilled and immediately the heavyweight division exploded back into life.

The Klitschkos will surely come soon but for now Britain should savour its first champion in the blue riband division since Lennox Lewis called it quits in 2003.

It was always going to take something special to defeat Valuev, whose sheer size alone made it a tougher task than Haye has ever undertaken.

It was always going to take the perfect gameplan from Adam Booth and it was always going to take the sort of disciplined performance few thought Haye the entertainer could produce.

But produce he did, dancing and darting for 12 rounds and sensationally wobbling the seven-foot giant with a sweet left hook in a blistering final round.

To floor Valuev would have been beyond even Haye's wildest dreams, but winning was not. Focused from the moment he strolled into the ring, the former cruiserweight king grew in stature as the fight went on.

Thunderous

It was never going to be the most thunderous of heavyweight clashes, Haye wisely keeping a safe distance but leaping in with the occasional flurry to keep the champion honest and the judges interested.

The opening round set the tone for the night. Once the surreal difference in size had been digested, he set about the giant task in hand. Two heavy jabs from Valuev pushed him back but from then on he was elusive and evasive in equal measure.

The second and third rounds were all about stick and move, and move again. The straight right that had done for many a cruiserweight and two heavyweights hit home in the second and by the end of the next, a sly left hook and another right, this time followed up with a two-punch combination had Valuev flustered.

Yet it all had the air of poking a big dog with a rather small stick and soon enough Haye found himself cornered for the first time in the fourth, taking two to the ribs but again responding with a rapid-fire return. The same sequence of events followed in the fifth but by the end, there were signs that the giant was stirring from his slumber.

The tempo upped in the sixth with Haye lunging in with a left and Valuev missing by a mile, but as rounds seven and eight came and went with the Brit back-pedalling, the sense of urgency seemed to have deserted him and the dreaded later rounds loomed larger than ever.

But Haye had kept clear of even a single clinch all night and the energy levels remained untapped even if his feet and not his fists had become his best weapons. He even ended the ninth winding up a bolo punch which sparked a ferocious talking-to for Valuev once he returned to his corner.

Backwards

As a result he enjoyed his best round in the 10th, chasing Haye down and around the ring in the first serious, sustained attack of the night. Twice he caught him with body shots, and twice he had him in the corner.

Haye escaped but with the scorecards now becoming a serious consideration, the feeling he was not going to win going backwards could not be ignored.

The eleventh also belonged to the bigger man, but even then he still missed with more than he hit and Haye was never in trouble. A picture of concentration, not once did he stray from the gameplan, not once did he get readily involved and not once did he lose sight of what he needed to do.

And then, in the final round, he almost produced the magical moment. In 53 fights no-one had even come close to staggering Valuev but then Haye, buoyed by success with a countering right, was up on his toes to hammer home a left hook to the temple.

Immediately Valuev's legs buckled and for a moment it seemed the giant might topple, Haye on top of him in a flash trying his best to finish the job.

Instantly, it was as if he remembered the gameplan and stood back after being pulled up for a rabbit punch, perhaps for fear of a falling Valuev or perhaps knowing that that final telling blow had done enough to win the WBA belt - even in the champion's own backyard.

Even the ultra-confident Haye could not have been certain he was going to get the decision, but get it he did and the dream suddenly became a reality.

Britain has a new world champion and the heavyweight division has a new bright star.