{"id":546237,"date":"2026-04-23T10:38:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T10:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/546237\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T10:38:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T10:38:07","slug":"david-haye-names-the-hardest-puncher-he-ever-faced-he-was-noticeably-different","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/546237\/","title":{"rendered":"David Haye names the hardest puncher he ever faced: &#8220;He was noticeably different&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former cruiserweight and heavyweight world champion <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/david-haye\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">David Haye<\/a> has revealed which man hit him hardest during his 32-fight professional career.<\/p>\n<p>Haye established himself as one of the biggest punchers in the cruiserweight division during the 2000s, with his first 16 victories all coming inside of the distance, as the Bermondsey-born operator announced himself on the big stage.<\/p>\n<p>In 2007, Haye knocked out Jean Marc Mormeck to get his hands on the unified WBA and WBC cruiserweight world titles, with his only defence of those belts coming in a title unification against WBO champion Enzo Maccarinelli, before moving up to heavyweight.<\/p>\n<p>The Brit needed just one fight before <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/features\/on-this-day-david-haye-defeats-gargantuan-nikolay-valuev-in-germany\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">challenging Russian giant Nikolai Valuev for the WBA heavyweight world title and claiming a majority-decision win<\/a>. He defended that belt twice, then suffered a second career defeat, losing a wide decision to the legendary Wladimir Klitschko.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@jack_figg\/video\/7631242022862556438?is_from_webapp=1&amp;sender_device=pc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Jack Figg<\/a>, Haye admitted that the imposing Valuev was the biggest puncher he ever faced.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cValuev [was the hardest puncher that I faced]. The few shots that I did take from Valuev, it was noticeably different. Because he was so big, seven-foot [and] 150 kilos, he didn\u2019t have to load up with punches. He is just naturally bigger so he kind of just flicks his arm out.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI noticed that very quick, he wasn\u2019t as slow as I hoped he would be. So, I had to really, really stay switched on to not feel that power.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/2018\/jun\/12\/david-haye-retires-from-boxing-tony-bellew-defeat\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Haye retired with a record of 28-4 after consecutive defeats to Tony Bellew<\/a>, with injuries hampering him in both of those losses.<\/p>\n<p>                                            <script async src=\"\/\/www.tiktok.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former cruiserweight and heavyweight world champion David Haye has revealed which man hit him hardest during his 32-fight&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-546237","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546237","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=546237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}