World heavyweight champion David Haye told Soccer AM that Nikolai Valuev's skull was as hard as a brick wall!
Russian's head is like hitting a brick wall!
David Haye made it a hat-trick of appearances this season when he popped into the studio on Christmas day, but this time he had a new shiny belt to show us!
The 29-year-old's Christmases all call came at once when he defeated Nikolai Valuev on November 7th, to be crowned world heavyweight champion and fulfil a lifelong dream.
Haye's points victory over the 7ft 2in man mountain in Nuremburg means he becomes the first Britain to hold the prestigious title since Lennox Lewis.
Despite going out with an aggressive game plan the Londoner was forced to change tactics after breaking his hand as early as the second round, and he admitted the Russian's skull was as hard as anything he's ever punched!
"I knew his head was going to be hard," he told
Soccer AM. "All jokes aside, he had some disease as a kid which meant he grew quicker, so his skull is about an inch thick and it was like hitting a wall.
"Normally, I hit someone and they hit the floor. I hit him and I broke my hand!"
Cautious
The early setback didn't deter the Millwall fan, however. Instead, adopting a more cautious approach, Haye began picking his punches with devastating effect and he told Helen and Max the result was never in question.
"I knew I'd won the fight," he said. "He wasn't hitting me with any big shots and I was the one who was landing all the big shots.
"But then again you're in Germany and in the past the Germans have ripped off a lot of us Brits before, so I knew I had to put a punch perfect performance in to get the win and I did that."
Positive
The fight, which was billed as 'David and Goliath', captured the imagination of the general public and Haye admitted he has been surprised by the positive reaction he has had ever since.
"I was the world cruiserweight champion and I thought being the world heavyweight champion would mean two or three times as much publicity work etc, but it's about 300 times as much.
"People who aren't even into boxing or even into sport know about the fight. Some old lady came up to me and said 'you did so great you were amazing' and I was like 'are you a big boxing fan?' and she said 'well I haven't watched it since 1982...'! So it's nice that people are behind me."
