By Gareth A Davies, Telegraph.co.uk
In a brutal dance, Haye had Ruiz down four times before the fight was stopped in the ninth by the referee Guillermo Perez , as Miguel Diaz in the American’s corner waved a white towel over the ropes. Haye won all but one of the rounds, slowly dismantling the challenger with power punches.
In a thrilling, extraordinary first round, barely 30 seconds into the contest, Ruiz was on the canvas pitched backwards from a powerful left-right from Haye, then down again on the ropes for a count of eight under a barrage of punches.
But the proud Ruiz was not finished, recovering to wobble Haye with a right hand. Haye went for the kill, but Ruiz showed how and why he has a reputation as a wily, experienced campaigner. He even threw a few punches after the bell.
Haye was cagier in the second quicker to the jab and landed with three uppercuts, and then in the third worked Ruiz, stiffening his legs with a three-punch combination. Early in the fourth stanza, and left-right, and outworked the champion. It was the challenger’s first success.
Ruiz came out with renewed vigour in the fifth but was under pressure immediately as two left-right combinations rocked the American’s head back. Ruiz, 38 was slowing. Only the bell saved Ruiz late in the round, as Ruiz landed as a huge scything right hand put him down.
Ruiz was almost finished after the sixth, but his corner allowed him to continue. The proud former two-time champion would not surrender. He needed his corner to do that for him after he had endured two more rounds of punishment.
Adam Booth, Haye’s trainer, swears that Haye feeds off the ambience to bring out the predator in him. Haye used the oxygen of publicity from outrageous stunts such as a t-shirt of the severed heads of fellow world title holders Klitschko brothers, Wladimir and Vitali, to get himself noticed in the heavyweight division and around the world, and here, in front of 20,000 fans, packed into the MEN Arena, Haye was in his element.
Ruiz, the industrious yeoman of the heavyweight vision for a decade and a half, seemed to drawing on the reserves once too often. Haye was simply too fast, too strong, indeed too spiteful to allow the proud ‘Quiet Man’ of Puerto Rican extraction into the fight.
In retaining his WBA heavyweight title Haye remains on track for both retirement in two years' time – he has promised himself he will be out of the hurt game by the age of 31 - and lucrative super-fights with one of the Klitschko brothers in November, his end game he has been plottingfor more than two years.
Haye, the fifth British-born heavyweight champion make his first title defence, and a heavy favourite, As one might expect, Haye is the heavy favorite - 7-1 to win, 7-2 by knockout, even though Ruiz has been stopped only once in his career, when he was caught cold by a David Tua hook seconds after the opening bell.
Haye, 29, nine years younger than Ruiz (44-8-1, 30 KOs), won his 24th victory, and became a national hero again, and this was his night once again. Great treasures lie in wait, along with hours of negotiation. Haye says this is his time. He might just be right. Haye will grow again from this, and the slaying of the Klitschko brothers in a boxing ring just that tiny bit more believable.
Source: telegraph.co.uk
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