A star is shining in England: David Haye is for real

The Englishman stops John Ruiz and the calls for a Klitschko fight grow louder

Those who dream of a dynamic powerhouse to energize and take hold of the heavyweight division just got a shot in the arm from the WBA champion from London, David 'Haymaker' Haye as he did what few have been able to do in dismantling and stopping former two time WBA king John 'the Quiet Man' Ruiz at the M.E.N. Arena in Manchester, England this Saturday night. Ruiz who has often been criticized for his unsightly fighting style of mauling came out looking determined to go for the KO win. He pressured Haye from the onset and began to walk down the champion behind a jab-right cross combination. But the former cruiserweight champion from London delivered his own one two combo that put Ruiz on his back in the first round. Ruiz would get up at the count of eight and look to be on unsteady legs when he was pinned against the ropes and sent down against this time from a rabbit punch. In a strange move the referee Guillermo Perez counted the knockdown and took away a point from Haye acknowledging the very foul that led to the knockdown that he counted against Ruiz anyway.

Ruiz survived the round and came back to reassert himself into the fight in the second and third rounds. But David Haye was an elusive target and his hand speed allowed him to attack and counter Ruiz at will. Ruiz, the first Latino heavyweight to hold a major title, was unbowed as he tried to stick to his game plan of steady pressure behind his jab but would repeatedly get caught with rapid combinations and a nasty right cross that bloodied his nose. He would fall again in the fifth and sixth rounds grabbing at his head in an apparent attempt to get Haye penalized again. The end would come in the last minute of the ninth round when Ruiz's trainer Miguel Diaz waved the white towel of surrender as his man was on the ropes again under heavy fire.

With this win Haye (24-0, 22 KOs) positions himself as the most attractive if not deserving contender to the Klitschko brothers Wladimir and Vitaly. It was the most impressive outing of the four heavyweight fights that Haye has engaged in since moving up from cruiserweight. John Ruiz (44-9-1, 30 KOs) had up to this point only been knocked out once and that by the powerful Samoan David Tua in a first round bludgeoning early in his career. Since then Ruiz ha gone toe to toe with the giants of the game, men like Evander Holyfield, Roy Jones, James Toney, Hasim Rahman, and Andrew Golota without suffering a stoppage loss. The muscular Haye immediately called out the Klitschkos and took a shot at the physical conditioning of the last two opponents that faced the brothers (Chris Arreola and Eddie Chambers) calling them 'disgraceful'. Haye is indeed an exciting fighter that provides the rare combination of speed, power, charisma, and just the right amount of vulnerability to capture the imagination of the boxing public.