After their poor showing against the Klitschko brothers—both losing in 12 rounds—British heavyweights Dereck Chisora and David Haye had their day in the sun, when they squared off against each other at Upton Park in London.
Many forces tried to stop the fight going ahead, including the British Boxing Control Board. The reason was that despite both Chisora and Haye being unlicensed in Britain, both men had behaved badly in front of the international media following Chisora’s loss to World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko in Germany. Chisora and Haye were involved in an unsavory brawl at the post-fight conference, culminating in the former being briefly detained by the German authorities and gaining himself an outright ban from boxing in his adopted country of England.
Despite protracted efforts to stop the grudge fight from taking place, the momentum of what happened in Germany at the post-fight conference of the Klitschko-Chisora bout was too much for the fight not to happen. You see, there’s hype to promote fights and there’s just plain hype. With the Chisora-Haye brawl, it was no hype at all. Both boxers got involved in a genuine fight and it seemed Chisora was serious when he threatened to hunt Haye down and shoot him. Such was the animosity between the two pugilists that a German promotional outfit quickly jumped on the bandwagon and signed both boxers to fight each other, not in Germany but in England, where the tournament was guaranteed a 30,000 sell out. However, the promoters had to deal with all the opposition to the fight and after they weathered the storm, the interest was so huge that there was no turning back.
The result was a proper fight in the ring at Upton Park and Haye prevailed courtesy of a 5th round knockout over his tormentor. If anything, the outcome confirmed two things: that Haye is a much better boxer than the one who lost a lopsided bout against Wladimir Klitschko last year, after predicting that he would knock out the WBA/WBO/IBF heavyweight champion; that Chisora is much better off shooting with his mouth than with his fists and that the only reason he went the distance with Vitali Klitschko was because he applied safety-first tactics and never took any chances. Chisora was also exposed as nothing but an overblown cruiserweight.
As expected, Haye made hay while the sun shone on him, following his knockout victory over Chisora. He called for a clash with Vitali because he stopped the man who the Ukrainian went the full distance with. But the truth of the matter is that the only reason Haye managed to knock out Chisora was that the former Zimbabwean threw caution to the wind and engaged with Haye. Had he adopted the same strategy against Vitali, the outcome would have been similar and the knockout probably would have come even sooner. With the Klitschko brothers all but out of credible opponents, Haye will probably get another shot at the heavyweight title, while Chisora will be relegated to the ‘stepping-stone’ heap. He has now lost three times as a pro—Tyson Fury being another loss.
After all is said and done, Haye’s win over Chisora benefitted a leukemia charity to the tune of £20,000. Chisora honored the pre-match bet he made with Haye and made the £20,000 donation to the African-Caribbean Leukemia Trust (ACLT), of which Haye is a patron. The money will be used to support the charity in their work to spread awareness and increase the number of bone marrow, blood and organ donors from ethnic minorities.
Perhaps it would have been magnanimous of Haye to also donate £20,000 of his purse money to the same cause.

Grudge Match Of  The Century

Heavyweight boxers David Haye and Dereck Chisora have been trying to get at each other for weeks now—on July 14, they will get their chance at West Ham’s Upton Park football ground in London. A crowd of 40,000 is expected, the biggest in Britain since Ricky Hatton beat Juan Lazcano in May 2008.
Both fighters will be unlicensed and angry; neither will earn any boxing ranking points from the fight—merely the grim satisfaction of winning what promises to resemble a street brawl. The British Board of Boxing Control has banned Chisora from fighting; Haye’s license has expired.
The first round of this street brawl was fought out on television, before a bewildered boxing world, at a press conference following Chisora’s loss to Vitali Klitschko for the World Boxing Council heavyweight title, in February at the Olympiahalle in Munich, Germany.
Was it real or staged? Many wondered. What is clear is that the two British boxers don’t like each other and it all boiled over in Munich.
It was the stuff the tabloids dream of. The Klitschkos’ manager, Bernd Boente, announced that no more British boxers would be given the right to challenge the world heavyweight champions, Vitali and Wladimir. This was a reaction to Chisora’s unbecoming behavior—to say the
least—before the fight.
First, Chisora slapped Vitali at the weigh-in. Then he spat on his younger brother, Wladimir, just before the fight.
After the fight it got worse. Haye, who had lost to Wladimir a few months earlier, was in the crowd of journalists at the post-fight conference. He objected to Boente’s statement about British boxers and demanded a rematch.
Sensing that Haye was stealing the show, Chisora responded by charging off the stage to attack Haye, verbally and physically. A brawl ensued amid the chaos of tumbling journalists, cameras and flying fists; Haye swung a camera tripod at Chisora. In the confusion, Chisora claimed he was glassed and said that he would either shoot Haye or hunt him down, or both. The German authorities detained 28-year-old Chisora and the British Board of Boxing Control banned him.
Chisora’s father, Paul, a contracts manager at a fireplace manufacturing company in Harare, was quoted in the Zimbabwean newspapers as saying: “If it was me, I could have kept my cool. He is still growing up and did not have anyone older who could restrain him.”
The two camps fixed the fight for July and persuaded the boxing federation of the small European nation of Luxembourg to sanction it because no one else would. This will be the first time a fight will be held in Britain, licensed by a foreign federation. The disgusted Luxembourg government withdrew its subsidies from the federation in protest.
It is a big story swirling around a young man from Zimbabwe. Chisora was born and bred in Harare and left for Britain to join his mother in 1999. He fights out of Finchley—Margaret Thatcher’s old constituency—and is a naturalized Briton with an accent more cockney than Shona.
Chisora fought 20 times as an amateur, before turning professional in 2007. Before he was banned, he was ranked 13th in the world heavyweight division, notching up 15 wins in 18 fights, with nine knock-outs. His winning streak of eight fights ended with the boxing authorities suspending Chisora for four months for biting journeyman boxer Paul Butlin in a heavyweight clash at the York Hall in Bethnal Green, London. As a result, he missed a fight for the British Heavyweight title against Danny Williams in 2009. He would defeat Williams a year later to become the British champion.
What irked Chisora was that Haye was given the opportunity to challenge for the world title first. Haye went on to lose to Wladimir in a poor showing after declaring that he would knock out both the Klitschko brothers in one night. Haye later claimed that he went into the fight with a broken toe.
By the way, Chisora went to Churchill Boys High School in
Harare—its mascot is a bulldog. Its spirit follows him still.

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