Pete Barrow: Time for Haye to make it real and how Huddersfield could help win the Ashes

Nov 19 2010 by Peter Barrow, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

THANK goodness that one of the Klitschko brothers has finally stepped up to end David Haye’s misery.

If he does take on Vitali, Haye will at last have a title fight that has some merit and heavyweight boxing might just regain a little of its lost kudos.

Haye’s demolition of Audley Harrison in Manchester last Saturday was essentially a joke.

When you think that the heavyweight division was once the blue riband of boxing, what has been offered in recent years has been of sub-reality television quality.

Many of us of a certain age were brought up with spectacles like the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ which pitted then world champion George Foreman against former world champion and challenger Muhammad Ali in an epic contest.

Haye has been thrown into bouts that have been more like ‘A rumble with Bungle’, which should have been closely followed by showdowns with other members of the Rainbow cast like Zippy and George, and concluded with a tag event that saw him take on Rod, Jane and Freddy.

The hype for the Haye-Harrison fight was laughable really.

Dubbed the ‘best of enemies,’ for two rounds the supposed animosity in the clash boiled down to two big guys nudging each other in a rather gentle way before Haye got bored and put Harrison on the canvas without really unleashing anything approaching a big shot.

While discussing the fight in the run-up to the event a colleague produced the most revealing Freudian slip by referring to Harrison as Ainsley.

I can only assume that he was thinking of TV chef Ainsley Harriott.

To be honest I would probably have paid for tickets to see Haye batter Harriott – obviously in a lightly whipped Yorkshire pudding mix well seasoned and flavoured with lemon and coriander.

Sadly for Harrison – whose professional record of beating up hotel bellhops and bouncers would probably have benefited hugely on the entertainment front had they been made to wear their work days clothes instead of boxing shorts – a string of bouts against the likes of Harriott, Gordon ‘Four letter words are my favourites’ Ramsay and Jamie ‘I’m not actually a Cockney’ Oliver seems the only way to keep his ailing career alive.