David Haye HARDtalk

private sector. -- pay awards. Now it is time for HARDtalk.

Heavyweight champion of the world used to be one of the most coveted

and glamourous titles in international sport. Now it is a

label that attracts cynicism and indifference. Why? Might guest

should know. David Haye was holder of one version of the heavyweight

title, known for his trash talk outside the ring and his prowess

inside it. If you look beyond the hype, is boxing a sport in terminal

David Haye, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you. You announce your

retirement from the ring in October. Are you missing its already?

yet. You watch big fights on TV and you get the adrenalin. George

Groves was a fighter I manage at the moment. He fought the other

night. You get that excitement, it is something I will miss. Maybe you

will not miss it for you long. There are rumours you are already

sporran. I have been doing a bit of sparring. I have been sparring with

a smaller guy. I was just having a bit of fun. I always try to keep in

good shape. The press's follow speculation that you are in

negotiation and talking to representatives about a new match-

up. Is that going to happen? I do not know. I read a lot about the

fights that have already been made but I have not seen a contract.

There are talks going on, there has been for a while. You are

interested? Of course. You would like to fight? Yes. I said that I

would still want to fight this man, the big brother of the guy who beat

me last time, and he is the only person I would consider coming out

of retirement for. I put the word out. I retired on schedule, as I

said I would. This would be of great interest to boxing fans

around the world. You were said that if Vladimir wants a fight, you

will be back in the ring and it could happen in the new year?

is a date in March they are talking about. Whether it happens or not I

do not know. I will make sure I am in good shape so that whatever

happens, if they want to give me what I deserve, and if the

sanctioning bodies come together, and it all can work, then it would

be something I would seriously consider. And you said, give me

what I want. You have always been a boxer who is adamant about having

control over what you do. You have been very careful about the fires

so far. -- the fight. I would not deserve a 50-50 on this five. Last

time it was. All the money on a television sales, ticketing, all of

it goes into a box and we are both happy. But this time I do not

deserve that. I do not have a title. But I do bring revenue into the pot.

I am nods like the usual contender who is a nobody. -- I am not. I

will put bums on seats. I know I am worth a certain value but I do not

believe it is worth 50-50. You have a long history with these brothers.

You last so Vladimir last time. -- you lost two. You have talked about

him going home in an ambulance, being executed... Being decapitated.

Decapitated as well. These things infuriated both brothers. One said

you were very disrespectful to the spot. Are you prepared to say sorry

as part of a build-up to a fight? No. Hopefully I have got under

their skin. Just so he does whatever he can to gets into the

ring and fight me. That was my plan and that has worked. There is no be

on the planet who can generate the kind of excitement a fight between

me and him would bring. You call it excitement but some people would

call it a caution of the sporting culture in general. Let's analyse

what he said. You talked about an execution and 80 capitation. You

spoke about him as saying by the ringside as he watched his brother

going to hospital in an ambulance. That upset people in boxing because

that goes beyond. Boxing is a sport where boxers can get seriously

damaged. They can die in the rain. So joking about ambulances and

hospital is not funny -- the rain. I was pushing the boundaries,

pushing it as far as I could take it. People listen to what I say

sometimes. They are shocked, how can this guy say this? I want this

guide to get knocked out. People pay �15 to watch a guy getting

kicked out and knocked out. I do not want people to think he is a

nice guy. Then they will not pay the money. Some people love the

hype and the trash talking. Some people hate it. As long as you are

not in the middle, you are happy. Are you suggesting that in the

pursuit of trash talk and dollar bills, you will say anything? There

is nothing off-limits? No. I would say I would go as far as I need to

go. Where are the limits? There are no limits. With Audrey Hamilton, I

said the fight would be like a gang rape. I said from day one, it would

not be a competitive five. I said I would destroy him. People said you

could not say that -- a competitive fight. So you were right and using

the metaphor of a gang bang was correct? Whether it was right or

not right, it was a situation where I thought of the most brutal and

one-sided thing, which I thought of gang rape, and that is what I said.

I just thought of the most one- sided thing I could think. I knew

it would unsettle people and get headlines. And it did. It got into

the middle of pages and made him one of the biggest fires in Britain

ever. You make it sound like you bear no responsibility for the

words that come out of your map. sole aim when I got into boxing was

to win as many titles as I could -- came out of your mouth. That was

the plan, not to be a really nice guy and say nice things. I had a

three-pronged attack on boxing. Calculating things is mercenary.

Would you except that? I would totally except that. Along the way,

I ruffled some feathers. If you want to be a nice guy, you are

going to end up brain-damaged and broke at the end of it. I did not

one that to happen to me. What about respect for your opponents

and the sport, and respect for wider society? I respect my

opponents, in terms of by train as hard as physically possible and

respect that they could put me in hospital and put me in a body bag.

I know that every fight could be my last. It is not like I am a

footballer and have 20 seasons to play. My next fight could be my

last. I need to generate as much fight in oneght in onecause it

could be my last. I need to do whatever I can to make sure I

generates the most and get the biggest event it can be. I am the

only one who can promote the fight and I have to do that in whatever

shape or form it can. I have looked at the history of those who have

generated the most money and it is always when they say the most

controversial things. One thing you are not is consistent.onsistent.le,

if we look at your last fight, you was impressed. You have always set

throughout your career that you cannot stand boxes to make excuses

-- you have always said. But after this fight you said you had a

broken toe. That was an excuse. He said there you were a crybaby.

Things happen. I could not land on my right hand like I wanted. One of

the contributing factors was having a broken toe. It was not the reason.

It was a factor as to why I could not throw my right hand but I

wanted. I could not explode off of it like I wanted. If you look back,

I have alwayhave alwayto shoot long right hands. He was very good and

punch me in the face when I got close. But I could feel a lot of

pain when I threw the punch. Boxers should not make excuses, but I did.

Yo Yong, you are right, I did make an excuse. We have talked

about the trash talk. Now we are talking about a bitter loss, which

people are saying, even if he gets back in the ring, he has to restore

some dignity in the ring. You just had an authorised biography written

about you. You have said that Barrar things in your career that

you cringe about. -- there are. Be honest. Now you are not in the ring,

what would you pinpoint and say you do regret that now? I cannot think

of any one particular articular said it in the bed. He said that

when you look back on the records you cringe -- said it in the book.

Early on in my career, when I was not as outspoken as I should have

been... You were not trash talking then? Maybe not enough. Early on, I

was trying to be a bit too nice and I was not myself. I am a joker and

I say whatever is on my mind. Early on in my career, I could have been

a bit more myself. Only as I got older I realise you have to be

yourself and things fall into place. They have done lately. I am

interested you take me back. I would like to take you further back.

In the evolution of any boxer, there has to be a moment, maybe

when you are a kid, because you only started when you were ten

years old, when you realise you can deal with being hurt and dishing

out hurt to your opponent. When did you realise that you could live

with that and cope with that? was a fight early on in my career

when I was not in the best shape. I was fighting a good amateur and

professional. I trained that day and came down to fight, and I was

fighting that night, and we had a tough fight. It was a pre- round

five. I won the first round, he won the second round. It was a wheel

slide -- fight. I managed to knock him out -- it was a real slog. That

was the fight where I thought, no matter what happens, I took some

stick in that fight and I managed to get him out of their and I

thought, this is for me. I was 17 at the time. I want to talk to you

about fear. I wonder that weather when that guy was flat out, and he

was unconscious, way you fearful about what you had done to him? --

were you. At the time, you are not thinking about him. Only after five

minutes on the floor, when I did not see anything else, I do not see

the crown of the roads, I just see my opponent, it is only when the

mist settles -- the crowd all the ropes -- and I could see his mother

next to him crying figure she did not know what was wrong with him,

and I thought, I hope he is all right. I asked him, how are you

feeling, and he said OK. But when you are fighting you are not

worried about the opponent. You just have to win the five. You have

to find a way. -- the fight. I can imagine that but I cannot imagine

how, having been through the space you just described, how you get

yourself mentally up for the next fight. There is always next fight.

You saw a guy at unconscious and you did not know for ten minutes

whether he was going to emerge badly damaged, possibly taken to

hospital, possibly with brain damage, you could not have known

that. But a few months down the line CEO you do it again. It is

like any sport. You do not go in half-heartedly. But in boxing that

We are not trying to get the guy brain damage.Hitting him in the

head. If a ready buyer goes to end tackle someone hard. More people

get injured playing rugby then boxing. And try to get the

psychology of it. I had a powerful interview recently with a boxer who

a few years ago fought a fierce fight who ended up dying a couple

of days later. He said, when that has happened to you, you have to

live with that for the rest of your life. As a boxer, you basically

killed someone. It was in the rules, but you killed a man. Have you ever

thought how you would kill with their -- cope with that? No come

but I do not focus on that one bit. If I focused on that, it would only

soften me as a fighter. One thing about boxing is that you have to be

as refers as possible if you want to be the most effective fight you

can be. You have to push the care aside. Had you do that? Had you cut

of your compassion? I have been doing boxing since the age of 10.

It has something that has developed inside of me. I think maybe one in

1,000 people are like that. It is not something that a regular guy

would have. It is something that surely, but surely, has nurtured

into your psyche and mindset. When you go out there, you do not think

about anything else other than putting that guy on his back.

sounds a bit like what soldiers say to me about training new recruits.

You have to train them into a mindset. You use that word killer.

You have to be so hard.David Haye going on to live a life. If you're

not boxing, how are you going to switch from being the David Haye

who has that utterly hard to his passionate replace streak to being

David Haye their lives in a society way that is not acceptable. I had

met a few boxes to have struggled with that. Trying to come from

being a killer fighter into being a regular diet. I think it is

something I will be able to cope with. I am quite level-headed and

that Kilham note that I go into when -- go into is switched on when

I go into that ring. People have said they do not recognise me when

I am on the ring. People say they look into my eyes and they go black

and they do not just recognise me. As long as that person stays hidden

away when the boxing gloves come off, it is a good thing for the

nation. You laugh, but I am just wondering Redican switching it on

and off -- wondering if you can switch it on and off. You may be

going back into the ring early next year, which means the relaxed, cool

David Haye is going to have to press that's which one more time.

Can you do it like that? I have done it for as long as I can

remember. I have always been into combat sports. When most kids were

watching Tom and Jerry, I was watching Jackie Chan and Presley

movies. It has been a way of life for me. It will be more strange

going into everyday life than switching mood -- bite my back on.

You speak about martial-arts. There are many experts on Boxing who say

that right now, the heavyweight division in the Ezekiel Howard is

at a disastrously low level. It is losing TV figures around the world.

It is a dying sport. I would go a long way back. Since Lennox Lewis

retired, and since I moved into the heavyweight division, there has

been at not much excitement about it. There have been heavy weight to

have held belts. They had been fighters who have been ever to pick

and choose their fighters. Maybe it is not their fault, though. If you

think about the Frazier at -- generation of Joe Frazier, Muhammad

Ali, George Foreman, it is not like that anymore. Why is it like that?

I do not think there's enough money involved in big-time boxing. There

is not enough money, how much have you may? A 20. You have made �20

million or �30 million. I am talking about Americans. I have

done it by promoting myself. The Americans cannot do that for

whatever reason. The guys who could probably be champions are probably

playing football or other sports. They can sit on the bench an �10

million every six months or so. While a baby fighting for the

heavyweight title? -- why would they be fighting. Some people would

think is it really worth putting your body through it. By the

injuries were paid for some people? There are people in boxing that say

you are part of the problem. You had been involved in high-profile,

much hyped fights with Audley Harrison, for example, which had

been disastrous for boxing. In one man's for the Duke, the fight had

been poor. The fight with Audley Harrison was one that the public

had demanded. From day one, I said I did not want to fight him.

brought the sport into disrepute. said I did not want to fight him,

but the television network wanted the fight as did the viewing public.

It was the higher to viewed all- British heavyweight title fight.

The point I'm getting to his if you look around the world at the fight

is in the game, you do not see the sort of fight that make people pay

per view to switch on their TV's and watch. People are still paying

for it. People want to sit and watch. If you look at the figures,

what they are rarely play it -- paying for is the mixed martial

arts and the ultimate fighting Championship. That is replacing

boxing as the spectator sport. eye and a mixed martial arts then

myself. If you want to see a great night of fighting, you can tune in

and watch it. You do that? Idea. do actually get into the ring?

I would not. At this stage, I would get away too many injuries. I and

injury prone. A final thought. You are too young to have to think

about this. One day, you may have a son who was to be a boxer. After

everything we have discussed, which will encourage or allow your son to

be a boxer? Only if he was more naturally gifted than myself. If he

was any less physically gifted, in terms of speed, athleticism,

Midland, timing, then I would say no. In boxing, if you are not

better than 99 people out of 100, you are going to get punched in the