Haye injured - Klitschko clash is cancelled!
Published June 3, 2009 by Boxing Capital
We finally get a Heavyweight title fight to get excited about and what happens? Yep, you guessed it, it’s cancelled. Wladimir Klitschko vs. David Haye, scheduled for June 20th in Germany will now not go ahead, with London’s David Haye withdrawing due to injury. At this stage details are scarce, with the official website of the Klitschko brothers simply stating ‘the reason is an injury to David Haye’.
What’s also significant is that this is not a postponement but a definite cancellation – a search has started for a new opponent for Klitschko on the planned June 20th date at the Veltins-Arena in Schalke, where 60,000 tickets had been sold for this event.
“We will do everything to realise this fight night. After having recovered from the first shock, we will work on finding a top opponent”, confirms Bernd Bönte, Managing Director of the Klitschko Management Group.
I really feel that this is a blow for the sport of boxing. The nature of the heavyweight division can often affect the buoyancy of the whole sport and I think everyone in boxing knows we need a heavyweight title fight to generate excitement and revive main stream interest in boxing. This fight would have been the first to do that since Lennox Lewis fought Wladimir’s brother, Vitali Klitschko, back in 2004.
On hearing of the cancellation, I immediately had a very worrying thought. A few months back, I read piece written by leading British boxing promoter Frank Warren, who claimed that there were rumours that a troubling long term injury to David Haye had led to him accelerating his plans to tackle the Heavyweight division; I now can’t help but wonder if the rumoured problem is the cause of this cancellation? If so, we may not see Haye back in the ring for a long time, if at all.
More details including (we hope) the specifics of the cancellation will no doubt emerge over the next few days but it’s a sad day for boxing. I sincerely hope David Haye makes a full recovery and we get to see this fight by the end of the year.
As for the June 20th date, who on earth can the Klitschko’s promoters get in to satisfy the 60,000 fans who have already bought a ticket? I’m not sure anyone else but David Haye could generate such interest, so I expect quite a few unhappy German fans.
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