Full Report: Haye Ko’s DeMori In one

Haye Ices DeMori In a Round on the ’Home of Witty Banter’ / Eyes Anthony Joshua Fight

By Olly Campbell: When the news dropped that former WBA heavyweight champion, David Haye, was to screen his comeback fight against unheralded Australian club-fighter, Mark DeMori, on free-to-air UK comedy channel, Dave, the considerable wind-up element on social media, [understandably] went into overdrive.

Perhaps a comedy channel ended up being the right place for Saturday’s two minute ’fight’ from London’s sold-out O2, as De Mori, who honed his professional skills with the aid of YouTube tutorials, turning professional in 2004 after just 11 amateur fights. Let’s have it right. Mark De Mori simply didn’t belong in there. And it showed.

The enormous gulf in class was painfully apparent the moment the Croatia-based Australian was even announced as Haye’s comeback opponent, yet when the action began, one quickly began to wonder how a fighter so limited was even sanctioned to compete at this level.

Gun-shy and visibly intimidated, plodding and sloppy with his left hand hung low, it took a big-hitting Haye mere seconds to begin finding the target, backing a flustered DeMori up with solid shots, before slipping a lazy left jab from the Aussie in the corner and detonating on his chin with a big-right hand that rendered him unconscious before he could even feel the leather of Haye’s follow-up flurry. After an anxious couple of minutes where DeMori lay motionless on the canvas, attended by paramedics, he was eventually aided to his feet to a round of applause from a crowd relieved, yet disappointed at the brevity of proceedings.

"It’s been a tough, tough road but I’m back," Haye said afterwards. " I’m punching harder now than I was before and I’m hitting harder than ever before. This new version of me will go on to win heavyweight championships."

It’s no secret that Haye wishes to boost his pension-pot by fighting the hugely popular Anthony Joshua later in the year, and given the massive appeal of both men to the casual fan, one suspects that both Haye and Joshua promoter Eddie Hearn, have been mentally counting the PPV money, even before tonight’s farce, with Hearn taking to social media immediately after tonight’s KO to say that a Haye/Joshua fight ’was too big not to happen.’

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January 16, 2016