David Haye’s comeback has been a real bum deal – his opponents have been too poor
Hayemaker should be doing his best to fight boxers that can stand up to his high standard and challenge the Brit in the ring
THE PHRASE ‘Bum of the Month’ was coined by New York boxing writers irate at the low standard of Joe Louis’ opponents.
Every month between December 1940 and June 1941, the Brown Bomber defended his world heavyweight title.
Louis knocked out every one of those seven challengers. But if he was expecting praise, he certainly didn’t get it in the newspapers.
Manhattan’s highly critical and discerning scribes made it clear they considered men like Al McCoy, Gus Dorazio and Buddy Baer totally unworthy of sharing a ring with Joe.
What insults those guys would have levelled at David Haye’s two comeback opponents can only be guessed at.
When Haye returned after a 3½-year lay-off four months ago he took 131 seconds to dispose of Aussie stiff Mark de Mori.
It was a grotesque mismatch but, as Haye had been out of action for so long, he was forgiven for taking on a patsy.
But there can be no excuse for his choice of an encore at the O2 Arena last Saturday.
Our Border Control officials would have done British boxing a big favour if they had refused entry to Swiss-based Arnold Gjergjaj.
It was obvious Arnold was going to be completely out of his depth against former two-time world champion Haye.
Gjergjaj was unbeaten and had won 21 of his 29 fights inside the distance. But looking at Arnold’s list of victims makes me think he plucked their names out of an Eastern European phonebook.
Non-entities like Liviu Ungureanu, Adnan Buharalija and Tomasz Zeprzalka — and don’t forget Denis Bakhtov who had already lost ten times before inadequate Arnold got to him.
Watching him on Dave TV as he waited for the opening bell, I got the impression Gjergjaj would rather have climbed the Matterhorn in a blinding blizzard than face Haye.
So it was no surprise when he virtually capitulated in the first 30 seconds after Haye landed a blow to his head. He fell to the canvas three times before being rescued by the referee after just four minutes 35 seconds.
There are a host of adjectives to describe Arnold’s pathetic performance — pitiful, humiliated, wretched and shabby.
My condemnation of Gjergjaj isn’t hindsight. Previewing the fight on Talksport, I said he would do well to get as far as round two.
The British Boxing Board of Control must be blamed because they shouldn’t have sanctioned the fight.
What I found extremely irritating was listening to the Dave commentary team going OTT in praise of Haye and not expressing a word of criticism about gutless Gjergjaj.
As for Haye, if he wants to knock over skittles, he should go bowling.