Thursday 30 June 2011

Paranoid in Hamburg

 Broadcaster  has gone for the  'The Talk Ends Now'; has gone for 'The War'. Personally, I would have plumped for 'Paranoia': the air was thick with it at the final fight news call on Wednesday.
There is a great scene in the  which kicks off with the line: "In Vegas, everybody's gotta watch everybody else." And that is what it was like in the rather more sanitised surroundings of the Mercedez-Benz showroom in Hamburg members of  camp were watching members of camp, men were posted on balconies, men in plain clothes were spying from behind ring posts. No all-seeing "eye-in-the-sky" but this journalist was watching it all.
One  insider told me he locked eyes with  older brother, and was unable to break the stare. In a sport of psychological inches, it would have represented a defeat, at least in this insider's mind. "How did you leave it?" I asked. "I raised an eyebrow and he eventually looked away." Victory! At last...
Wladimir Klitschko watches David Haye's training session.
It is fair to say  was not impressed as he watched  training. Photo: Getty images
Earlier crew had attempted to intercept  entourage on its way into the venue, only for  and co to burrow their way in via another entrance. We were then treated to the surreal sight  camp watching from ringside as  performed a perfunctory workout. At one point,  was shadow-boxing southpaw, before  for a reason that was lost on most - started brandishing a glove on a stick. And so the fun and games continued.
"David  is a bad actor," the told BBC Sport. "But all he's doing is showing he's low in confidence. All these games are burning him up - he's only playing games with himself."
Not surprisingly, Haye disagreed. "Wladimir looks rather wound up," said the Englishman, who will be putting his WBA belt on the line at the Imtech Arena on Saturday. "Everything I've done has worked perfectly, their whole team seems rattled." build-up to Saturday's fight has been stage-managed to the minutest detail, in and out of the ring. T-shirts depicting a headless dark claims about trainer Emanuel Steward and something categorically denied by Steward against .
And as if that was not enough, goes and digs up Hitler.
On Wednesday morning,  tweeted a link to the about the last days of Hitler, with mock subtitles referring to the build-up to the fight. An English guest in Germany making references to  enough to make you wince and there is a real sense that Haye is alienating a lot of would-be British fans with his boorish
Even Steward had to admit that, if it were not for motor mouth, the fight might not have happened. But the ink is dry on the contract, the fight is days away and fans are tired of the trash talk. "I hope shuts up this little upstart," wrote one on a previous blog, "A disgrace to professional sport." And there are plenty more where that came from. That said, and Booth seem so calculating, I'm not sure they care.

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