? Klitschko upset with T-shirt showing him decapitated
? 'Gentleman must behave like gentleman,' he says
So much conflict has preceded the David Haye-Wladimir Klitschko world heavyweight showdown that you wonder whether they need to bother with the actual fight. This week's launch of 2 July's bout has featured spectacular condescension by Klitschko towards Haye and now a potential row over the appointment of officials, who will be nominated by three sanctioning bodies who would struggle to agree which is night and which is day.
The protagonists in what Sky are calling the biggest heavyweight dust-up since Lennox Lewis versus Mike Tyson nearly 10 years ago have argued over money, the venue, doctors and who should jog into the ring first.
"A year and a half ago we all wanted to go to Chelsea ? Stamford Bridge, " Klitschko's manager, Bernd B�nte, said on Tuesday. "Wladimir knows [Roman] Abramovich and was invited by him. That was the first plan. But the other side couldn't deliver."
Chelsea became Gelsenkirchen, then the Imtech Arena in Hamburg, where a 50,000 crowd is expected in Klitschko's adopted home town. It took two and a half years in total to settle the differences between the camps and another still looms. With three belts at stake, Haye's manager, Adam Booth said: "The governing bodies will choose the officials and we have agreed to allow them."
Given the sensitivities on both sides this remains a formula for chaos.
The Stamford Bridge idea collapsed because Klitschko harboured unhappy memories of his brother, Vitali, being stopped on cuts against Lewis in Los Angeles. "Wladimir wants to have a German doctor in the corner and that's something the British Boxing Board of Control wouldn't allow," B�nte said. "They insist that one of their own doctors must be in the corner. That's why the fight won't be happening in the UK."
Under German rules Haye will be allowed a British doctor while Klitschko is overseen by a local. "In this case we had our experience in Los Angeles with the Lewis fight. We had to make sure someone objectively watches it, so it's fair and square."
While these labyrinthine negotiations continue the fighters have been denigrating one another in contrasting styles. On Tuesday's London leg of the promotional tour after the opening spat in Hamburg the previous day, Klitschko, for instance, wanted to know: "Would your mother like to see a picture of you with your head off?" Haye's severed-head T-shirt showing the Klitschko brothers post-decapitation still grates with the younger of the champion brothers.
He said this after Haye had renewed his mantra about Klitschko being dull and a curse on boxing. "His personality is exactly how he fights ? boring ? and that's why he needs eradicating from the heavyweight division," Haye said. "We're two animals. I'm just a dog, you can't control me. When you get two dogs in a fight the tougher one wins, the one who's tougher mentally and physically. That's me. I'm a prime fighting machine.
"He's manufactured, look at his style. Boring. Jab-jab-grab, jab-jab-grab. That's what he does. He wants to control everybody but he can't control me. I won't do what all his opponents have done in the past, which is take his stupid jab and allow him to hold me. It's not going to happen."
Klitschko is regarded as an intellectual among fighting men but his trash talk forced Sky Sports News into an apology after some dubious remarks about Haye's sexuality. "Your speech was a little weak. I was expecting you to do a little more because you want to be an actor in Hollywood and it takes a little more to get there. I opened the Hayemaker magazine [the British fighter's in-house mag] and it's 'me, me and more me'. If they change the H to G it would be funnier and maybe help sales."
Haye, who spent much of the press conference labelling his opponent a control freak, countered: "It's time for the Klitschkos to fade into boxing history like the big robots they are."
So far, so predictable, but after the severed-head stunt Klitschko has seized his chance to lecture his opponent about conduct. "I think he feels sorry for it, deep inside I think he knows he made a mistake. With certain things you don't cross the line. You can promote, you can talk garbage, but there are certain things you cannot touch."
Reminded that Muhammad Ali and others were practical jokers who employed freak-show comedy to shift tickets, Klitschko said: "Muhammad Ali supported the black movement in the United States, he refused to go to Vietnam, he made hostages free in Iraq. He was big outside the ring. He was funny. I can laugh about Muhammad Ali and the way he promoted fights. I cannot laugh about T-shirts showing people with their heads off." After round two, Klitschko is agreed to be ahead in the psychological sparring.
A reluctant fighter in his early years, Klitschko represents the biggest test of Haye's 26-fight pro career, which took flight with his victory over the gargantuan Nikolai Valuev in Nuremberg, for the World Boxing Association belt in November 2009. "I never loved boxing, to be honest with you. I was never a fan of boxing," Klitschko said. "I started by accident, because my brother started. I wanted to be a doctor, actually, but my brother was a born fighter, so I became a fighter, at the sports school. I have learned in boxing so much that I couldn't learn at Cambridge or anywhere else.
"Boxing is such a beautiful sport. The history of boxing started here in England. It is a sport for gentlemen. Gentlemen must behave as gentlemen."
When he tried for the second day to shake his opponent's hand, though, Haye refused and said: "I don't do what you want me to do. What part of that don't you understand?"
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