Boxing: Don’t go heavy, Enzo urges Haye

Mar 19 2008 by Gareth Jones, South Wales Echo

ENZO Calzaghe is hoping that David Haye does not go up to heavyweight following his two-round win over rival cruiserweight champion Enzo Maccarinelli.

Promoter Frank Warren says the Swansea man will return to the ring in June, with another world title shot following before the end of the year. Calzaghe would love to see his pupil get another crack at the Londoner.

“People say once Haye’s gone up, Enzo will be all right and will win another belt at cruiser,” says the senior Enzo. “We don’t want that. We don’t want it to look as though he’s only champion because Haye’s given the title up.

And he insists that the outcome of this month’s unification battle, although decisive, proved nothing.

“Haye didn’t win that fight, Enzo lost it,” says the Sardinian maestro. “He only threw four punches and they all landed. Enzo only threw one – and cut him.

“I have every respect for Haye, but it wasn’t the better man that won, it was the more intelligent fighter that won.

“It didn’t last long enough to show one way or the other, because Enzo did everything wrong.”

It was the first loss by a Calzaghe camp boxer for more than seven years, since Delroy Pryce, brother of Commonwealth light-middle king Bradley, was knocked out by world-class Australian Nedal Hussein. For Enzo, it doesn’t count, because Maccarinelli did not obey orders.

“I told him to go at Haye from the first bell,” says the trainer. “If he’d done that he’d have won inside three rounds.

“But he believed what he read in the press. Everybody was writing that he should stay out of trouble for the first six rounds, then Haye would get tired and Enzo could take over.

“So he stood off him. He was hesitant and he who hesitates is lost. But if he does what he’s supposed to, I still think he can beat Haye.”