No we know why David Nohayemaker Haye could not go toe to toe with heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko.
It may have looked for 12 rounds in Hamburg as the only thing between the two giants was air and fear but Haye explained (complained?) after the desultory bout that he could not launch any serious Hayemakers because he had a sore toe.
Once again, as in the Sugar Shane Mosley-Manny Pacquiao fight when Mosley was revealed to have blisters from fooishly using new boxing shoes, a podiatry problem has been determinative of the outcome in a major fight.
Really, with his foot problem, can any reasonable person not understand why Haye never went toe to toe with Dr. Steelhammer.
I mean, the pain from that sore tootie must have been so bad that Haye felt like someone had dropped a steelhammer on his tortured appendage.
I asked Daily Mail columnist Joltin’ Jeff Powell what the media reaction was when Haye mentioned his toe tribulations at the postfight presser in Hamburg.
?People were laughing,? Brother Powell reported to me on Sunday.
I could keep going with the jokes, such as they are…
Maybe Haye’s ring walk music should have been ?Toot, Toot, Tootsie, Goodbye.?
His injury was the reason that Haye could not, ahem, toe the mark. Heck, he couldn’t even mark the toe.
Haye’s autobiography is due soon, the title is ?Bury Me At Wounded Toe.? Advertisement
You people, especially you Brits, expect too much. Sure, we all know fighters who have fought courageously with broken hands but that wounded toe surely affected Haye’s ballerina like footwork. I mean surely it did, or as Don King would put it, ?indubitably.?
Blisters, sore toes, I just want to get on the good foot here and predict the next major foot injury to crop up in boxing will be bunions.
Let’s hope comebacking Paul Williams isn’t the fighter who gets afflicted with this. Otherwise, some cruel observer will start referring to him as Paul ?Bunions? Williams.
(If you don’t know who Paul Bunyon was, skip that one, please. Or just give it the giant woodsman’s axe.)
Let’s give Klitschko some credit. He did win nine, 10, 11 or all 12 rounds by most accounts.
But he beat a nearly crippled Haye, a man with only nine working toes.
With 10 in top form toes, surely Haye would lose by a smaller margin, eh?
Well, I hope to be among the first to nominate Haye for the Profile In Courage Award for not pulling out of the fight.
Imagine the headlines: HAYE PULLS OUT OF KLITSCHKO BOUT, BLAMES TOE JAM.
Or: HAYE WASN’T ABLE TO PLAY FOOTY FAIRLY WITH WLADIMIR.
There truly is no no business like toe business…
