By Rob Dore | boxing comment
Either Danny Dyer is the greatest character actor to ever tread the boards or, as the innumerable comments on YouTube so vehemently claim, he is a massive bell-end. Either way his association with this particular production is not out of place.
Faux tough guy Dyer has been called in to do some promoting work for the shambles that is the David Haye v Dereck Chisora heavyweight fight. It’s an over-hyped, pointless affair for which boxing fans have little appetite. Much like one of Mr Dyer’s films.
His appearance in the above video makes us even more suspicious that this fight, on July 14 at Upton Park, is one massive joke we’re just not getting yet. Perhaps the fight itself will provide the punchline. Pun intended.
So ludicrous is the entire affair that even the initial brawl which led to David Haye postponing his retirement to take on his new enemy Dereck Chisora feels like a badly orchestrated set-up.
We’re now less than two weeks away from a fight which is heavy on controversy but light on significance. The build-up is likely to be the most entertaining aspect.
David Haye has spent the last four years talking himself in to big money fights. Claiming to be the next big thing in the heavyweight division. Promising to shake-up the division and take-down the dominating Klitschkos. He did neither.
What he did do was to make a lot of money for himself, sacrificing the excellent reputation he had earned in becoming the world’s top cruiserweight by becoming a novelty attraction in the heavyweight division.
This fight makes sense for Haye, if not the fans
In the four years since his final cruiserweight win, a multi-belt winning KO of Enzo Macarinelli, Haye has beaten two over-the-hill pros (John Ruiz and Monte Barrett), he danced his way to victory over a lumbering giant (Nikolai Valuev) and he stopped Audley ‘A-Farce’ Harrison.
This was enough to get him a shot against the lesser of the Klitschkos, Wladimir, in July of last year. He proceeded to do his best to avoid fighting for 12 rounds and then bitched and moaned about a sore toe being the cause of his terrible performance. From that point on his legitimacy as a top heavyweight has taken a bashing and now he’s trying to cash in on the last drop of credibility he has left.
“I would give David some advice – don’t say anything right now, like you have a broken toe and couldn’t compete. You’d be called a sore loser. It wouldn’t look good,” said Wladimir Klitschko after beating David Haye and his broken toe.
Fighting a domestic rival with just 18 professional fights to his name may not pay as well as getting in to the ring with Vitali Klitschko but it’ll hurt a whole lot less. And Haye actually has a chance of winning this one. From Haye’s point of view this fight makes sense. Chisora did look better in his loss to Vitali than Haye did against Wladimir so it’s not without risk for the Haye-Maker.
The fact that both fighters are banned by the British Boxing Board of Control for their brawl simply adds to the circus. The rules were simply circumvented by getting licenses from Luxembourg’s ruling body, that bastion of pugilistic excellence.
Britain’s ruling body doesn’t want this fight to take place and the vast majority of the fans don’t really care. As big a boxing addict as I am I certainly won’t be shelling out the fee for the pay per view on this fight. However, I probably will find it online somewhere and watch it for free. I’ll go down in my own estimations for doing so but habits need to be fed, even with the most unworthy of fare.
Good old Danny Dyer. His cockney accent has been paying his bills for years. I’d love to see him get all those gigs with a Longford accent.
Apparently there is some sort of appetite for this fight. It seems that the Germans are well up for it: http://www.boxingscene.com/haye-vs-chisora-now-picked-up-by-sky-germany—54441. Epix will be showing it in the U.S. too. According to Frank Warren the ticket sales were really good and his TV channel are asking people to register for the fight now as they expect such a high demand at the weekend that customers may be left disappointed. I take this with a pinch of salt however as boxing is built on this sort of propaganda.
I’m with you though, this is a fight built on farce. The fact that they can be awarded a license from Luxembourg but fight in England is ridiculous. It’s like committing a crime and then asking to be tried under the justice system of a different country because they’re more lenient on your felony of choice. If they are going to be granted licenses by the Luxembourg boxing board then they should have to fight in Luxembourg. It also sticks in the craw that there are more interesting match-ups out there that aren’t getting near the same sort of publicity. The Pacquiao fight hardly seemed to cause a ripple on this side of the Atlantic.
As far as Boxnation goes, I remain unconvinced about its viability, particularly from a consumers point of view. So far several of their headline fights have been cancelled for one reason or another. Add to that the fact that boxing is a semi-seasonal sport anyway (in so far as there are quieter periods of the year) and it leaves the consumer paying for a product that is unpredictable yet they are expected to pay a fixed amount at regular intervals. At least with PPV you are only paying for a one off event with a refund available if the event falls through. The one problem being however that the cost is quite high for a one-off event. With Sky cutting back their boxing output too the sport is slipping further from the mainstream. As a boxing fan it’s hard not to worry that this state of affairs, allied with the selfishness of many promoters will only serve to further marginalise the sport.
Two points here I’ll address immediately. David Hasselhoff built a singing career in Germany so their taste in entertainment has to be deemed as highly suspect.
Secondly, any sentence beginning with “According to Frank Warren…” has to be dealt with the utmost suspicion and doubt. If there is any appetite for this fight it is generated by a famine of quality boxing.
I totally agree on the Luxembourg licensing point. Countries should only be allowed to sanction fights within their own borders. If they want to fight go to Luxembourg. The reason the fight is being kept in London is because both fighters are from the area so they’ll be able to convince more of their friends and neighbours to go along. Boxnation is still pushing the tickets on the website so it’s not yet a sell out.
The Pacquiao result was a farce by the way but we’ll deal with that one at a later date.
Again I’m with you on the Boxnation business model. When Haye v Chisora is your marquee event then you’re in trouble. And they are.
If boxing could learn from the UFC then it could reverse the current decline. If you’re paying €60 for a PPV then you want more than one big fight. The UFC offers stacked cards of competitive fights on a regular basis. How entertaining these fights are depend largely on your knowledge of the sport but when is the last time Floyd Mayweather’s promoter gave him shit for putting on a dull fight? Something which the outspoken Dana White is quick to do if a fighter fails to perform for the crowd.
Boxing is all about the glorification and enrichment of the individuals involved and not the entertainment of the fans who fund the sport. If this doesn’t change then the sport will continue to slide. The sad thing is that there are so many talented and exciting fighters out there but with the organisation of the sport in such a state of disarray we don’t get to see them often enough. And we rarely get the bang for our buck when it comes to PPV. I say ‘we’ but I stopped paying for boxing PPVs a long time ago.
you slag