{"id":38192,"date":"2025-08-01T13:26:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T13:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/38192\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T13:26:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T13:26:07","slug":"david-haye-names-the-greatest-heavyweight-of-all-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/38192\/","title":{"rendered":"David Haye Names The Greatest Heavyweight Of All Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Haye is one of Britain\u2019s best ever fighters.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Bermondsey boxer was a big hitter with great speed and power. He is in a rare class of men who have been world champion in both the cruiserweight and heavyweight division alongside the likes of Evander Holyfield<\/a> and most recently Oleksader Usyk.<\/p>\n

His standout wins include the likes of a brutal second-round stoppage over Enzo Maccarinelli in 2008 and a majority decision over the giant Nikolai Valuev for the WBA heavyweight strap. He defended it against John Ruiz and Audley Harrison, then lost to Wladimir Klitschko and twice to Tony Bellew before retiring in 2018 folllowing persistent injury troubles<\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking to Froch on Fighting,<\/a> \u2018The Hayemaker\u2019 was asked about the best ever heavyweight and went with \u2018The Greatest.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cMuhammad Ali, for me, for a bunch of different reasons, inside the ring, outside the ring, what he stood for, how much heart he had, how he carried on, everything he stood for. Massive Ali fan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ali was a gamechanging heavyweight who brought all new speed, wit and charisma to the sport. He won Olympic gold in 1960 and became world champion in 1964 by defeating Sonny Liston and had legendary contests, including his trilogy with Joe Frazier, especially the brutal \u2018Thrilla in Manila\u2019 and his upset victory over George Foreman in the \u2018Rumble in the Jungle\u2019, both of which helped him cement his legacy.<\/p>\n

Beyond the ring, Ali was a powerful voice for civil rights and became a global icon as much for his shows of resistance outside of the ring as his courage in it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Haye is one of Britain\u2019s best ever fighters. The Bermondsey boxer was a big hitter with great…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-38192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}