Haye under fire for controversial comments
WBA heavyweight champion David Haye may have crossed the line yesterday with comments regarding his upcoming November bout with European heavyweight champion Audley Harrison. Haye told a group of reporters that his upcoming bout would be “as one-sided as a gang-rape.” The analogy, made to eight national newspaper journalists gathered around him just after a publicly-aired news conference on Sky Sports, was designed to shock—and shock it did.
Catching wind of the comments today, Rape Crisis Charity chief executive Yvonne Traynor told Sky News Online that she was “appalled.” She added: "For Mr. Haye to think that it is acceptable to make this comparison is a serious lack of judgment and intelligence and shows that he neither knows what he is talking about nor who is going to be affected by this tasteless comment."
Haye’s comment isn’t the first in promotion of a fight to spark wide-spread backlash. Famously, days before the “Thrilla in Manila” bout between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, their third and final meet, Ali called Frazier a “big black gorilla” and repeatedly emphasized a racial caricature between him and the animal. During the tour, he even brought a stuffed gorilla with him that he punched and fed bananas to on live TV. The comments were not seen as positive by all, and no wonder.
Haye and Harrison have been engaged in a verbal sparring match for the past few weeks in the wake of the announcement of their 13 November bout. Haye posted various verbal shots at Harrison on his Twitter account. He promised to “destroy” the “delusional” Harrison, a former Olympic champion, telling journalists: “I am going to close the curtain on the joke that is the Audley Harrison show. I just want to close the show once and for all […] I don't want people to bring up his name again."
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