As expected, WBA heavyweight titlist David Haye will make the first defense of his belt when he takes on veteran American and former titlist John Ruiz on April 3. The fight will emanate from Manchester's MEN Arena, rather than London as previously expected.
Oscar de la Hoya had this pearl:
"With his explosive fighting style, heart, youth and charisma, David Haye is the most exciting heavyweight in the world."
So natural. So natural.
Anyway, Haye had this to say:
It's been 10 years since the heavyweight championship has been fought in Britain, and everyone knows I had to go to Germany to take the title away from Nikolay Valuev. Now it's time to showcase my skills again in front of the great British public. And I'm delighted to have the fight at Manchester's MEN Arena. I've been there on many nights to watch Ricky Hatton, Joe Calzaghe, even Mike Tyson, and the atmosphere was always tremendous. I'm looking forward to getting back to what I do best - throwing my trademark 'Hayemakers'."
This is sure to be a Sky Box Office event in the UK, and I'm hoping there's an afternoon PPV imported to the States. If Golden Boy could get Integrated involved (the company that does many of the overseas PPV shows, such as Valuev-Haye, Valuevy-Holyfield, Khan-Barrera, etc.), it might be possible, but given that Golden Boy tends to want to run their own ship away from HBO, they'd probably be producing it themselves, which would mean two pay-per-view events on the same day, as Hopkins-Jones II is going to be that evening from Las Vegas. So we'll see.