Making Haye

THERE'S BEEN plenty of the usual trash talk in the build-up to David Haye's defence of his WBA heavyweight title in Manchester's MEN Arena this Saturday but, interestingly, very little of it has come from his opponent John Ruiz.

In fact even Haye has had little to do with noising up his opponent, preferring to spend his energy on his on-going war of words with rival heavyweights Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko.

The Ukrainian brothers both had fights lined up with Haye last year before he pulled out to fight the then WBA champion Nikolay Valuev, a man considered the least formidable of the major title holders. It may have been a shrewd strategic business move by Haye but it has left him vulnerable to the Klitschkos' barbs ever since. Their claim is that he took the easy route to a world belt because he was running scared. The fact that Haye was far from dazzling as he overcame Valuev, enduring rather than entertaining on his way to a majority decision, has simply allowed them to persist with their condemnations.

In terms of a rebuttal Haye this week pointed to extenuating circumstances against the giant Valuev and sneeringly challenged the Klitschkos to explain Wladimir's recent showing against Eddie Chambers. Despite dominating the first 11 rounds, he allowed matters to drag into the 12th before deploying a single left-hook to the head and flooring the American with just five seconds left. It was only in the later stages that he displayed any kind of urgency, finally using his jab offensively as well as defensively.

"It's about that killer instinct. I just think he is afraid of engaging," taunts Haye. "You know, people can talk about my fight with Valuev not being the most entertaining but there was a size difference, he was a foot taller than me, and heavier, but what the hell is Wladimir's excuse for fighting the way he does against someone like Eddie Chambers, who is completely out of shape, has not got any punch power anyway… what was his excuse for holding things up for 12 rounds? He has no excuse! He is so afraid of engaging because when you open up you are exposed a little bit and he is so paranoid about getting knocked out himself that he has developed that 'don't hurt me' style and he just does enough to win the rounds and hopes the other guy will just run out of steam and fall over at the end."

Running out of steam is not something which will affect Haye should things progress as planned and he gets his shot at the brothers grim later in the year. He already has so much of it that it's coming out his ears.

This Saturday's fight against Ruiz is the 29-year-old's chance to silence some of the doubters, bolster the interest in him as a legitimate threat to either one of the Klitschkos, and allow him the opportunity to have a go at shutting up his verbose rivals.

This week they claimed they could not decide who would get to face Haye first and may simply toss a coin for the pleasure of taking his WBA title.

Buoyed from a good training session, Haye laughed off their attempt to rile him ahead of the Ruiz fight.

"I can't start thinking about that or have that mindset. I have this next fight against Ruiz to focus on but, yeah, the sooner I can get these fights the better. But, those fights don't happen if a win over Ruiz doesn't happen so I'm just focusing on that first and then whichever one of them is available next, that's the fight I want." And he doesn't care which one is up first. "I'm not fussed either way. I feel I would beat either one so whichever of them has got the most bottle really, and wants to take it on, I'm happy with that."

Although a host of top Premier League footballers have already blagged tickets for this Saturday's fight, with Chelsea in town to play Manchester United (a match Haye says he will attend) it's the showdown with either Klitschko that would excite boxing fans fed up with heavyweight mismatches where out-of-shape boxers past their sell-by date are lined up as challengers. Haye insists Ruiz could not be placed in such a category.

"You have got to respect what he has done in the ring. Look through his record, throughout the last ten years in heavyweight boxing, he has been in there and given a good account of himself and he knocked Evander Holyfield down and that was right round the time when Mike Tyson couldn't do that and Lennox Lewis couldn't knock him down, yet Ruiz managed to do it. So there are little details like that. He is an effective heavyweight. You don't become two-time heavyweight champion by not being effective at what you do and not being a genuine threat so I know that he is a dangerous guy but I know how to counteract that.

"I do feel that maybe people do look at him and see all that's wrong with heavyweight at the moment, guys just mauling and going in with head and fighting ugly just to get the win, but I'm not going to allow him to do that. I'm going to force him to fight exciting."

The talking has definitely started. They just need to get Ruiz to buy into it then back it all up with deeds.