In the heavyweight wonderland of Riyadh, Nikolai Valuev would have been a big star
By Steve Bunce
IT has been 15 years since Nikolai Valuev lost to David Haye and walked off into the Black Forest to hunt wild pigs and bears and giant, feral sheep.
On that night in Nuremberg, he lost for just the second time in 53 fights and left the ring without his WBA heavyweight belt; Haye was still celebrating when Valuev vanished. There have been very few sightings since, which is odd considering he is over seven feet tall and probably weighs about 25 stone now. I have seen him just once on my travels since that night.
He would have been an ideal candidate for the unofficial heavyweight league in Saudi Arabia, one of the 20 or so heavyweights who have so far fought at the Kingdom Arena. There is not a venue in history that can compare with the dominance of the Kingdom Arena in such a tiny timeframe; four big shows, the fight for the undisputed title and all in just eight months.
Also, perhaps as many as 18 heavyweights from the top 20 in the world have so far climbed through the ropes. Make no mistake, the Beast would be a player. I would argue that he is far more resilient than Arslanbek Makhmudov, who was brutally exposed by Agit Kabayel in December; Makhmudov, at 6ft 6ins and with 17 knockouts in 18 wins, was being created as Beast II, that was the transparent move. Valuev would not have folded like Makhmudov did.
On that night back in 2009 when Valuev reached the end of his long, long career, I had landed at 7pm and I was leaving at 7am; the trip, the fight and flight are all a blur. Thankfully, I had my Valuev interview in the bag. He was a lost soul, the big lad, and I had a soft spot for him.
He hated violence, he loved the works of Agatha Christie and hunting with a crossbow. He was not the first Soviet giant to be snatched at an early age and placed in one of the sports academies.
Jonathan Daniel/Bongarts/Getty Images
He was at the far end of the fading Soviet system, a system that made champions across every sport. It was also a system without compassion or care for the thousands of rejects. The Klitschko boys were products of a similar regime.
He tried basketball and as far as I know he still holds the discus record for under-19s in Russia. At 20, an old-school Soviet boxing professor called Oleg Shalaev started to work with him. It was, as you can imagine, a slow process to make him a boxer.
His selection for the noble art was based only on size, not on temperament. He quoted poetry, he was not a natural-born fighter. He married a ballerina; he loved the arts.
It was Kellie Maloney who dubbed him ‘The Beast from the East’ (several people claim to have given him the nickname) and he eventually won the heavyweight title. Sure, there was a lot of Primo Carnera in the mix. In fairness, both Valuev and Carnera could fight, they were brave and showed tremendous heart.
“The people only cared about my size,” Valuev said. Carnera would have said the same, but he was not allowed to tell his story.
Haye was brutal in the weeks before the fight and took every available opportunity to belittle Valuev. He talked about his smell, his hair, his slowness. However, in private there was nothing trivial in his preparation for the fight.
On the night, Haye had the riot act read to him several times by Adam Booth in his corner. Some of the photographs from the fight look fake; Valuev is so much bigger, and Haye made himself small at times. It was an event, trust me.
Haye helped sell the fight; he made it a must-watch event. It was popular at the time and that is down to what Haye could do – he sold his fights. After Valuev, he performed miracles with both John Ruiz and Audley Harrison. It is easy to forget how big Haye was. It goes without saying that Haye in the Saudi mix would have been a lot of fun. “He is another idiot in boxing,” Valuev said.
Remember, at about this time, Haye had shown up in a restaurant where the Klitschko boys were dining, and he was wearing a t-shirt with a picture of him holding up the severed heads of the brothers. That is why 60,000 seats sold-out for his planned fight with Wladimir in Gelsenkirchen.
Boxing – Nikolai Valuev v David Haye WBA Heavyweight Title – Nuremberg Arena, Germany – 7/11/09
After Haye had withdrawn from the sold-out fight with Wlad, there was another scandal involving a Klitschko, this time it was Vitali. There was a suggestion and a claim that on the day the Valuev fight was announced, Haye was close to agreeing – some say signing – to fight Vitali. The Klitschko and Haye rivalry is deep, and it was nasty. It was impossible to be nasty with Valuev.
Memory can play tricks, but not in the case of the Valuev and Haye fight that night in Nuremberg. It followed a relentless pattern of Haye moving, hitting, moving and ducking and Valuev trying to cut the ring down. In the last, Haye did finally connect clean and Valuev was a punch away from landing with a bang. One judge returned a drawn verdict, the other two went for Haye. It was, in many ways, a tactical masterclass.
“I never said it would be pretty or easy beating the giant,” Haye said at the end. He was right.
