It is good to have a British heavyweight champion again. You have to admire David Haye for his victory over Nikolay Valuev. He was giving away around nine inches in height and about 99lbs in weight. He was having only his third fight as a heavyweight and his first fight for a year. All this and fighting for almost eleven rounds with a hand injury.

      It is a pity that John Ruiz is his mandatory challenger as he is rarely in a good fight. In the past four years he has not beaten anyone of note, has lost twice to Valuev and also to Ruslan Chagaev. Having Don King on your side is still worth something in boxing.

      David may have to wait a long time for a shot at Vitali Klitschko as the WBC champion has a voluntary defence against Kevin Johnson in December and Ray Austin has just won a fight to become Vitali's next mandatory challenger, although there is talk of an Austin vs Oleg Maskaev fight to fill the post. Wladimir looks more accessible and, now that he has a title of his own, David brings more to the table.

      To put Valuev into perspective, he was great in weight and height, but not that great in ability. Ruslan Chagaev gave away eleven inches and 90lbs and beat him and  Evander Holyfield, at the age of 46, giving away ten inches and 96lbs, and after a year of inactivity, took Valuev to a disputed majority decision, so David was always in with a better than good chance.

      It is good to get back to a place where height and weight are not all that counts at heavyweight, and nice to be able to ask America-where are all of your heavyweights now guys?

      However, for ability and punching power both Vitali and Wladimir are a different ball game to Valuev. They really are mountains to climb.

      The WBC has done a great deal of drum beating for its new Diamond Belt. It is to be presented the winners of “super fights”. The WBC considers itself to be the major sanctioning body (something with which I generally agree), but has found itself on the outside for some recent big fights such as Manny Pacquiao vs Ricky Hatton, Floyd Mayweather vs Juan Manuel Marquez and now Pacquiao vs Miguel Cotto, so this is their way of trying to horn in on a fight which has nothing to do with them.

      They will present the first Diamond Belt to the winner of the Pacquiao-Cotto fight, even though it is for the WBO title. There is no mention yet of them receiving a sanctioning fee, but that can’t be far behind. What they do not seem to realise is how it demeans their own title. Andre Berto is their “world” welterweight champion and yet they are going to award a very expensive belt (of a higher value than the one Berto received for winning the WBC title) to the winner of a fight for the WBO welterweight title, a fight they describe as a “super fight”. So where does that leave Berto? It leaves him holding a world title belt that even his own sanctioning body feels is less important than a WBO title. It will be interesting to see whether the WBC ranks his proposed January 30 fight with Shane Mosley, the WBA champion, as a “super fight”. I have this vision of a fighter showing someone around his trophy room and the guy asking “What belt is that”. “It’s the WBC Diamond Belt”. “How did you get it” “They gave it to me for winning the WBO title”!!!!. Nice one Jose?

      With a big flourish members of the World Boxing Foundation claimed to have reconstituted itself as the World Boxing Federation. Big deal! The original World Boxing Federation was sued out of existence by Nigerian veteran Bash Ali; going into liquidation because they could not pay the damages he was awarded. Guess what-a senior member of the new body is the same guy who led the original WBF when they screwed Ali causing a Californian court to award damages which put the old World Boxing Federation out of business. Meanwhile, according other members of the World Boxing Foundation, it is still in existence. I hope they fight each other and it turns out better than most of their title fights. Best of luck guys.

      The politicians in the Philippines House of Congress have been requested to attend to the business of Congress. So many of them have made plans to travel to Las Vegas to see the Pacquiao-Cotto fight, that there may not be a quorum in Congress and there are a number of important bills going through the House. Our guys may fiddle their expenses, but at least they turn up, well most of the time.

      For a while there was a sudden mushrooming of boxing shows in Casinos run by Native Americans with the various tribes setting up their own promoting and management groups and signing up boxers. That experiment seems to be doomed to failure. Two of the main tribes to involve themselves in boxing, the Seminoles and the Sycuan, are rumoured to be closing their operations leaving boxers such as Celestino Caballero, Randall Bailey, Glen Johnson, Juan Urango and Sultan Ibragimov in limbo.

      Danish promoter Mogens Palle had a Joe Calzaghe/ Bash Ali moment. The Hall of Fame promoter was awarded over £3 million in a breach of contract action against Danish network DK4, but is unable to collect as they have gone into liquidation.

      If you are a flyweight and can manage to climb up the stairs into the ring then you have a good chance of landing a shot at the European title. Take Frenchman Chris Rodrigues, despite a 15-15-3 record (he lost to Dale Robinson in Nottingham in 2001) he is in line for his third shot at the title and will be facing Italian Andrea Sarritzu, who has already beaten him twice.

      Looks like Kelly Pavlik will return to action in his hometown of Youngstown on December 19 defending against Miguel Espino. Kelly has been plagued by injuries to his left hand and has not fought since losing to Bernard Hopkins in October last year. Espino, who lost to Pete Manfredo in the Contenders show, is unbeaten in his last eleven fights. He is rated No 3 by the WBC but was not in the last WBO top 15 I saw. Just whisper sanctioning fee and that will be corrected.

      The battle of the estate of the late Arturo Gatti is still in its early stages. His widow is battling it out with Arturo’s family in the courts in New Jersey. At stake is an estimated $6 million with two wills floating about. The great warrior deserves a better ending than this squabble.