K2 killing boxing?

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By any stretch of the imagination they are wonderful athletes, great boxers and come across as genuinely nice guys (business practices aside). But they lack the X factor that makes the heavyweight champion the flag bearer of boxing. In public they say the right things, do the right things and come across as UN ambassadors to boxing. Inside the ring they fight in a manner that leaves the viewing public comfortable. Sorry but the viewing public generally likes to be on the edge of their seat when watching boxing and especially the big men. They say that in HW boxing one punch changes everything. With K2, its a succession of jabs and the occasional right cross until the opponent is either stopped by the ref of by their corner.

You can't be nice both in and out of the rind and get the general public going. They both lack spite in and out of the ring. Their continuous dominance is killing boxing in the sense that they do not represent fight fans (not just boxing fans) but boxing purists. History will be kind to them as it should be. But the current cannot be. Hardly anyone outside of eastern europe looks forward to their fights and hardly anyone can say they deliver edge of seat stuff. Obviously their style of boxing will not change. But perhaps they can do something to get worldwide fans excited. Shag a granny instead of helping her across the road. Get done for DUI, stir the pot a little. All this Mr Nice guy "Oh look at me I am a throwback to the gentleman days" is boring. Deliver some excitement.

Rant over.

Well perhaps Manos perhaps we will never know. Only that Haye and Booth for that matter seemed more adamant than usual that his retirement would be when he turned 31. Easy money via chat shows, books, movies, relaity TV to follow into his 30s. Perhaps I'm not aspirational enough myself but didn't Haye generate around £4m/£5m for the Wlad fight? Make it a crude 50% total deductions and you have around £2.5m in the bank add to around £1m for the farce that was Audley........I'd retire peacefully on that I think!

£5m is nothing compared to £50m he could have made with endorsements and the like plus higher purse and more PPV money. He would not have stayed retired.

Trouble is though Az who is out there to generate such huge cash sums for Haye - Povetkin!? Chambers!? Arreola?! Adamek!? Vitali would be the grudge match but apart from him that's about it. There wouldn't be that much interest in the major US TV stations as they would see a trash talking British fighter who beat a Ukranian champ they never really knew of or rated that highly to begin with.

The only money to be made would be in Germany for Vitali and that's it.

I'm still sticking to my Haye woulda retired had he beaten Wlad but each to their own!

He would have had enough to retire on for sure but the lure of even mnore money would be massive. When you can make 5 million quid for fighting Audley Harrison then the temtation to hang around and milk the success would be too much for me. Fighting every 10 months would still give him plenty of time to do his movies, chat shows, endorsements and all the rest of it. The fact he came back after losing to Wlad and the way hes gone about it kind of indicates to me that he was never going to stay retired. He had enough money to retire on when Wlad beat him. He just wants more. He would not have entertained the idea of fighting Chisora whatsoever if it hadnt suddenly become worth a couple of million quid to him. With Sky ppv he could have hauled in multi millions against practically anyone and if he really wanted to go for broke a Vitali fight would probably have seen him earn huge amounts.

Haye wasnt obliged to rematch Wlad or fight Vitali though. I dont think he would have fought Vitali straight away. If he was going to the states Id guess it would be to fight a Rahman/Toney/Holyfield character or a mandatory. He would probably then have fought Vitali in London I think.