:00:11. > :00:15.private sector. -- pay awards. Now it is time for HARDtalk.
:00:15. > :00:19.Heavyweight champion of the world used to be one of the most coveted
:00:20. > :00:25.and glamourous titles in international sport. Now it is a
:00:25. > :00:31.label that attracts cynicism and indifference. Why? Might guest
:00:31. > :00:36.should know. David Haye was holder of one version of the heavyweight
:00:36. > :00:42.title, known for his trash talk outside the ring and his prowess
:00:42. > :00:52.inside it. If you look beyond the hype, is boxing a sport in terminal
:00:52. > :01:13.
:01:14. > :01:18.David Haye, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you. You announce your
:01:18. > :01:24.retirement from the ring in October. Are you missing its already?
:01:24. > :01:31.yet. You watch big fights on TV and you get the adrenalin. George
:01:31. > :01:36.Groves was a fighter I manage at the moment. He fought the other
:01:36. > :01:40.night. You get that excitement, it is something I will miss. Maybe you
:01:40. > :01:48.will not miss it for you long. There are rumours you are already
:01:48. > :01:54.sporran. I have been doing a bit of sparring. I have been sparring with
:01:54. > :02:00.a smaller guy. I was just having a bit of fun. I always try to keep in
:02:00. > :02:05.good shape. The press's follow speculation that you are in
:02:05. > :02:13.negotiation and talking to representatives about a new match-
:02:13. > :02:17.up. Is that going to happen? I do not know. I read a lot about the
:02:17. > :02:20.fights that have already been made but I have not seen a contract.
:02:21. > :02:28.There are talks going on, there has been for a while. You are
:02:28. > :02:34.interested? Of course. You would like to fight? Yes. I said that I
:02:34. > :02:39.would still want to fight this man, the big brother of the guy who beat
:02:39. > :02:45.me last time, and he is the only person I would consider coming out
:02:45. > :02:51.of retirement for. I put the word out. I retired on schedule, as I
:02:51. > :02:54.said I would. This would be of great interest to boxing fans
:02:54. > :03:00.around the world. You were said that if Vladimir wants a fight, you
:03:00. > :03:06.will be back in the ring and it could happen in the new year?
:03:06. > :03:13.is a date in March they are talking about. Whether it happens or not I
:03:13. > :03:18.do not know. I will make sure I am in good shape so that whatever
:03:18. > :03:22.happens, if they want to give me what I deserve, and if the
:03:22. > :03:27.sanctioning bodies come together, and it all can work, then it would
:03:27. > :03:31.be something I would seriously consider. And you said, give me
:03:31. > :03:38.what I want. You have always been a boxer who is adamant about having
:03:38. > :03:47.control over what you do. You have been very careful about the fires
:03:47. > :03:52.so far. -- the fight. I would not deserve a 50-50 on this five. Last
:03:52. > :03:57.time it was. All the money on a television sales, ticketing, all of
:03:57. > :04:03.it goes into a box and we are both happy. But this time I do not
:04:03. > :04:10.deserve that. I do not have a title. But I do bring revenue into the pot.
:04:10. > :04:15.I am nods like the usual contender who is a nobody. -- I am not. I
:04:15. > :04:23.will put bums on seats. I know I am worth a certain value but I do not
:04:23. > :04:33.believe it is worth 50-50. You have a long history with these brothers.
:04:33. > :04:41.You last so Vladimir last time. -- you lost two. You have talked about
:04:41. > :04:45.him going home in an ambulance, being executed... Being decapitated.
:04:45. > :04:51.Decapitated as well. These things infuriated both brothers. One said
:04:51. > :04:57.you were very disrespectful to the spot. Are you prepared to say sorry
:04:57. > :05:04.as part of a build-up to a fight? No. Hopefully I have got under
:05:04. > :05:09.their skin. Just so he does whatever he can to gets into the
:05:09. > :05:13.ring and fight me. That was my plan and that has worked. There is no be
:05:13. > :05:20.on the planet who can generate the kind of excitement a fight between
:05:20. > :05:26.me and him would bring. You call it excitement but some people would
:05:26. > :05:32.call it a caution of the sporting culture in general. Let's analyse
:05:33. > :05:38.what he said. You talked about an execution and 80 capitation. You
:05:38. > :05:42.spoke about him as saying by the ringside as he watched his brother
:05:42. > :05:47.going to hospital in an ambulance. That upset people in boxing because
:05:48. > :05:54.that goes beyond. Boxing is a sport where boxers can get seriously
:05:54. > :05:59.damaged. They can die in the rain. So joking about ambulances and
:06:00. > :06:03.hospital is not funny -- the rain. I was pushing the boundaries,
:06:03. > :06:09.pushing it as far as I could take it. People listen to what I say
:06:09. > :06:14.sometimes. They are shocked, how can this guy say this? I want this
:06:14. > :06:18.guide to get knocked out. People pay �15 to watch a guy getting
:06:18. > :06:24.kicked out and knocked out. I do not want people to think he is a
:06:24. > :06:29.nice guy. Then they will not pay the money. Some people love the
:06:29. > :06:33.hype and the trash talking. Some people hate it. As long as you are
:06:33. > :06:38.not in the middle, you are happy. Are you suggesting that in the
:06:38. > :06:46.pursuit of trash talk and dollar bills, you will say anything? There
:06:46. > :06:56.is nothing off-limits? No. I would say I would go as far as I need to
:06:56. > :07:01.go. Where are the limits? There are no limits. With Audrey Hamilton, I
:07:01. > :07:06.said the fight would be like a gang rape. I said from day one, it would
:07:06. > :07:15.not be a competitive five. I said I would destroy him. People said you
:07:15. > :07:20.could not say that -- a competitive fight. So you were right and using
:07:20. > :07:25.the metaphor of a gang bang was correct? Whether it was right or
:07:26. > :07:33.not right, it was a situation where I thought of the most brutal and
:07:33. > :07:37.one-sided thing, which I thought of gang rape, and that is what I said.
:07:37. > :07:42.I just thought of the most one- sided thing I could think. I knew
:07:42. > :07:45.it would unsettle people and get headlines. And it did. It got into
:07:45. > :07:51.the middle of pages and made him one of the biggest fires in Britain
:07:51. > :07:57.ever. You make it sound like you bear no responsibility for the
:07:57. > :08:04.words that come out of your map. sole aim when I got into boxing was
:08:05. > :08:12.to win as many titles as I could -- came out of your mouth. That was
:08:12. > :08:19.the plan, not to be a really nice guy and say nice things. I had a
:08:19. > :08:25.three-pronged attack on boxing. Calculating things is mercenary.
:08:25. > :08:30.Would you except that? I would totally except that. Along the way,
:08:30. > :08:35.I ruffled some feathers. If you want to be a nice guy, you are
:08:35. > :08:40.going to end up brain-damaged and broke at the end of it. I did not
:08:40. > :08:44.one that to happen to me. What about respect for your opponents
:08:44. > :08:48.and the sport, and respect for wider society? I respect my
:08:48. > :08:53.opponents, in terms of by train as hard as physically possible and
:08:53. > :08:58.respect that they could put me in hospital and put me in a body bag.
:08:58. > :09:03.I know that every fight could be my last. It is not like I am a
:09:03. > :09:08.footballer and have 20 seasons to play. My next fight could be my
:09:08. > :09:12.last. I need to generate as much fight in oneght in onecause it
:09:12. > :09:18.could be my last. I need to do whatever I can to make sure I
:09:18. > :09:23.generates the most and get the biggest event it can be. I am the
:09:23. > :09:28.only one who can promote the fight and I have to do that in whatever
:09:28. > :09:32.shape or form it can. I have looked at the history of those who have
:09:32. > :09:37.generated the most money and it is always when they say the most
:09:37. > :09:47.controversial things. One thing you are not is consistent.onsistent.le,
:09:47. > :09:48.
:09:48. > :09:53.if we look at your last fight, you was impressed. You have always set
:09:53. > :09:57.throughout your career that you cannot stand boxes to make excuses
:09:57. > :10:06.-- you have always said. But after this fight you said you had a
:10:06. > :10:12.broken toe. That was an excuse. He said there you were a crybaby.
:10:12. > :10:17.Things happen. I could not land on my right hand like I wanted. One of
:10:17. > :10:22.the contributing factors was having a broken toe. It was not the reason.
:10:22. > :10:28.It was a factor as to why I could not throw my right hand but I
:10:28. > :10:32.wanted. I could not explode off of it like I wanted. If you look back,
:10:32. > :10:37.I have alwayhave alwayto shoot long right hands. He was very good and
:10:37. > :10:45.punch me in the face when I got close. But I could feel a lot of
:10:45. > :10:50.pain when I threw the punch. Boxers should not make excuses, but I did.
:10:50. > :10:55.Yo Yong, you are right, I did make an excuse. We have talked
:10:55. > :11:02.about the trash talk. Now we are talking about a bitter loss, which
:11:02. > :11:07.people are saying, even if he gets back in the ring, he has to restore
:11:07. > :11:11.some dignity in the ring. You just had an authorised biography written
:11:11. > :11:21.about you. You have said that Barrar things in your career that
:11:21. > :11:24.
:11:24. > :11:31.you cringe about. -- there are. Be honest. Now you are not in the ring,
:11:31. > :11:35.what would you pinpoint and say you do regret that now? I cannot think
:11:35. > :11:41.of any one particular articular said it in the bed. He said that
:11:41. > :11:45.when you look back on the records you cringe -- said it in the book.
:11:45. > :11:51.Early on in my career, when I was not as outspoken as I should have
:11:51. > :11:58.been... You were not trash talking then? Maybe not enough. Early on, I
:11:58. > :12:03.was trying to be a bit too nice and I was not myself. I am a joker and
:12:03. > :12:09.I say whatever is on my mind. Early on in my career, I could have been
:12:09. > :12:14.a bit more myself. Only as I got older I realise you have to be
:12:14. > :12:18.yourself and things fall into place. They have done lately. I am
:12:18. > :12:23.interested you take me back. I would like to take you further back.
:12:23. > :12:26.In the evolution of any boxer, there has to be a moment, maybe
:12:26. > :12:33.when you are a kid, because you only started when you were ten
:12:33. > :12:37.years old, when you realise you can deal with being hurt and dishing
:12:37. > :12:43.out hurt to your opponent. When did you realise that you could live
:12:43. > :12:50.with that and cope with that? was a fight early on in my career
:12:50. > :12:57.when I was not in the best shape. I was fighting a good amateur and
:12:57. > :13:02.professional. I trained that day and came down to fight, and I was
:13:02. > :13:09.fighting that night, and we had a tough fight. It was a pre- round
:13:09. > :13:17.five. I won the first round, he won the second round. It was a wheel
:13:17. > :13:21.slide -- fight. I managed to knock him out -- it was a real slog. That
:13:21. > :13:26.was the fight where I thought, no matter what happens, I took some
:13:26. > :13:34.stick in that fight and I managed to get him out of their and I
:13:34. > :13:41.thought, this is for me. I was 17 at the time. I want to talk to you
:13:41. > :13:47.about fear. I wonder that weather when that guy was flat out, and he
:13:47. > :13:53.was unconscious, way you fearful about what you had done to him? --
:13:53. > :13:58.were you. At the time, you are not thinking about him. Only after five
:13:58. > :14:03.minutes on the floor, when I did not see anything else, I do not see
:14:03. > :14:09.the crown of the roads, I just see my opponent, it is only when the
:14:09. > :14:14.mist settles -- the crowd all the ropes -- and I could see his mother
:14:14. > :14:20.next to him crying figure she did not know what was wrong with him,
:14:20. > :14:24.and I thought, I hope he is all right. I asked him, how are you
:14:24. > :14:28.feeling, and he said OK. But when you are fighting you are not
:14:28. > :14:38.worried about the opponent. You just have to win the five. You have
:14:38. > :14:42.to find a way. -- the fight. I can imagine that but I cannot imagine
:14:42. > :14:48.how, having been through the space you just described, how you get
:14:48. > :14:52.yourself mentally up for the next fight. There is always next fight.
:14:52. > :14:57.You saw a guy at unconscious and you did not know for ten minutes
:14:57. > :15:00.whether he was going to emerge badly damaged, possibly taken to
:15:00. > :15:06.hospital, possibly with brain damage, you could not have known
:15:06. > :15:16.that. But a few months down the line CEO you do it again. It is
:15:16. > :15:16.
:15:16. > :15:26.like any sport. You do not go in half-heartedly. But in boxing that
:15:26. > :15:31.
:15:31. > :15:39.We are not trying to get the guy brain damage.Hitting him in the
:15:39. > :15:45.head. If a ready buyer goes to end tackle someone hard. More people
:15:45. > :15:50.get injured playing rugby then boxing. And try to get the
:15:51. > :15:57.psychology of it. I had a powerful interview recently with a boxer who
:15:57. > :16:03.a few years ago fought a fierce fight who ended up dying a couple
:16:03. > :16:09.of days later. He said, when that has happened to you, you have to
:16:09. > :16:14.live with that for the rest of your life. As a boxer, you basically
:16:14. > :16:19.killed someone. It was in the rules, but you killed a man. Have you ever
:16:19. > :16:29.thought how you would kill with their -- cope with that? No come
:16:29. > :16:29.
:16:29. > :16:38.but I do not focus on that one bit. If I focused on that, it would only
:16:38. > :16:44.soften me as a fighter. One thing about boxing is that you have to be
:16:44. > :16:49.as refers as possible if you want to be the most effective fight you
:16:49. > :16:56.can be. You have to push the care aside. Had you do that? Had you cut
:16:56. > :17:02.of your compassion? I have been doing boxing since the age of 10.
:17:02. > :17:08.It has something that has developed inside of me. I think maybe one in
:17:08. > :17:17.1,000 people are like that. It is not something that a regular guy
:17:17. > :17:22.would have. It is something that surely, but surely, has nurtured
:17:22. > :17:26.into your psyche and mindset. When you go out there, you do not think
:17:26. > :17:29.about anything else other than putting that guy on his back.
:17:30. > :17:35.sounds a bit like what soldiers say to me about training new recruits.
:17:36. > :17:45.You have to train them into a mindset. You use that word killer.
:17:46. > :17:47.
:17:48. > :17:52.You have to be so hard.David Haye going on to live a life. If you're
:17:52. > :17:58.not boxing, how are you going to switch from being the David Haye
:17:58. > :18:06.who has that utterly hard to his passionate replace streak to being
:18:06. > :18:10.David Haye their lives in a society way that is not acceptable. I had
:18:10. > :18:14.met a few boxes to have struggled with that. Trying to come from
:18:14. > :18:20.being a killer fighter into being a regular diet. I think it is
:18:20. > :18:28.something I will be able to cope with. I am quite level-headed and
:18:28. > :18:33.that Kilham note that I go into when -- go into is switched on when
:18:33. > :18:39.I go into that ring. People have said they do not recognise me when
:18:39. > :18:46.I am on the ring. People say they look into my eyes and they go black
:18:46. > :18:49.and they do not just recognise me. As long as that person stays hidden
:18:49. > :18:59.away when the boxing gloves come off, it is a good thing for the
:18:59. > :19:03.nation. You laugh, but I am just wondering Redican switching it on
:19:03. > :19:08.and off -- wondering if you can switch it on and off. You may be
:19:08. > :19:13.going back into the ring early next year, which means the relaxed, cool
:19:13. > :19:19.David Haye is going to have to press that's which one more time.
:19:19. > :19:29.Can you do it like that? I have done it for as long as I can
:19:29. > :19:33.remember. I have always been into combat sports. When most kids were
:19:33. > :19:38.watching Tom and Jerry, I was watching Jackie Chan and Presley
:19:38. > :19:43.movies. It has been a way of life for me. It will be more strange
:19:43. > :19:51.going into everyday life than switching mood -- bite my back on.
:19:51. > :19:54.You speak about martial-arts. There are many experts on Boxing who say
:19:54. > :20:01.that right now, the heavyweight division in the Ezekiel Howard is
:20:01. > :20:09.at a disastrously low level. It is losing TV figures around the world.
:20:09. > :20:13.It is a dying sport. I would go a long way back. Since Lennox Lewis
:20:13. > :20:18.retired, and since I moved into the heavyweight division, there has
:20:18. > :20:28.been at not much excitement about it. There have been heavy weight to
:20:28. > :20:29.
:20:29. > :20:34.have held belts. They had been fighters who have been ever to pick
:20:34. > :20:39.and choose their fighters. Maybe it is not their fault, though. If you
:20:39. > :20:45.think about the Frazier at -- generation of Joe Frazier, Muhammad
:20:45. > :20:48.Ali, George Foreman, it is not like that anymore. Why is it like that?
:20:48. > :20:56.I do not think there's enough money involved in big-time boxing. There
:20:56. > :21:00.is not enough money, how much have you may? A 20. You have made �20
:21:00. > :21:05.million or �30 million. I am talking about Americans. I have
:21:05. > :21:09.done it by promoting myself. The Americans cannot do that for
:21:09. > :21:17.whatever reason. The guys who could probably be champions are probably
:21:17. > :21:21.playing football or other sports. They can sit on the bench an �10
:21:21. > :21:30.million every six months or so. While a baby fighting for the
:21:30. > :21:37.heavyweight title? -- why would they be fighting. Some people would
:21:37. > :21:44.think is it really worth putting your body through it. By the
:21:44. > :21:47.injuries were paid for some people? There are people in boxing that say
:21:47. > :21:57.you are part of the problem. You had been involved in high-profile,
:21:57. > :22:03.much hyped fights with Audley Harrison, for example, which had
:22:03. > :22:08.been disastrous for boxing. In one man's for the Duke, the fight had
:22:08. > :22:17.been poor. The fight with Audley Harrison was one that the public
:22:17. > :22:21.had demanded. From day one, I said I did not want to fight him.
:22:21. > :22:27.brought the sport into disrepute. said I did not want to fight him,
:22:28. > :22:31.but the television network wanted the fight as did the viewing public.
:22:31. > :22:36.It was the higher to viewed all- British heavyweight title fight.
:22:36. > :22:40.The point I'm getting to his if you look around the world at the fight
:22:40. > :22:45.is in the game, you do not see the sort of fight that make people pay
:22:45. > :22:54.per view to switch on their TV's and watch. People are still paying
:22:54. > :22:57.for it. People want to sit and watch. If you look at the figures,
:22:57. > :23:03.what they are rarely play it -- paying for is the mixed martial
:23:03. > :23:11.arts and the ultimate fighting Championship. That is replacing
:23:11. > :23:16.boxing as the spectator sport. eye and a mixed martial arts then
:23:17. > :23:25.myself. If you want to see a great night of fighting, you can tune in
:23:25. > :23:33.and watch it. You do that? Idea. do actually get into the ring?
:23:33. > :23:38.I would not. At this stage, I would get away too many injuries. I and
:23:38. > :23:43.injury prone. A final thought. You are too young to have to think
:23:43. > :23:47.about this. One day, you may have a son who was to be a boxer. After
:23:47. > :23:56.everything we have discussed, which will encourage or allow your son to
:23:56. > :24:01.be a boxer? Only if he was more naturally gifted than myself. If he
:24:01. > :24:07.was any less physically gifted, in terms of speed, athleticism,
:24:08. > :24:11.Midland, timing, then I would say no. In boxing, if you are not
:24:11. > :24:16.better than 99 people out of 100, you are going to get punched in the