JOHN L SULLIVAN, the first world heavyweight champion, who trained on a diet of whiskey and cigars, would mock the methods of the 27-year-old man sweating in the Mediterranean sun and aspiring to be his successor. At 6ft 3in and 16st 2¾lb, David Haye is a bona fide heavyweight - 5ft 11in Mike Tyson weighed 15st 11¼lb when he first won the title - but the process by which he is restructuring his muscular body into a powerful vehicle for his dreams has drawn scepticism. “The ring is a continuum with fixed values and built-in cultural patterns,” AJ Liebling, the great chronicler of boxing, once wrote and this observation is as true today as it was in Sullivan’s time.

“This is not the type of stuff other boxers do,” the charismatic south Londoner acknowledges about a training regimen that incorporates a sophisticated weights programme, a seven-meals-a-day diet that is high in protein, antioxidants and Vitamins B and C, and high-intensity sprints sessions. “My coach, Adam Booth, and I have been in gyms and we’ve had people look over and say, ‘What the f*** are they doing? All this new age crap.’ They are the guys who have stayed at British level while I have moved on to the undisputed world cruiserweight championship and now I’m stepping up to challenge the heavyweights.”

Weighing 14st 3¾lb, Haye knocked out Frenchman Jean-Marc Mormeck in the seventh round on November 10, 2007, in Paris to win The Ring, World Boxing Council (WBC) and World Boxing Association (WBA) cruiserweight (14st 4lb) belts. He scaled 14st 2lb in his only title defence, a two-round demolition of Swansea’s World Boxing Organisation (WBO) title-holder Enzo Maccarinelli on March 8, 2008, at London’s O2 Arena, but his ambition has always been to rule at heavyweight, an achievement that has eluded a long line of accomplished smaller men moving up. Archie Moore won the world light-heavyweight (12st 7lb) title in 1954 but was stopped in world heavyweight title challenges against Rocky Marciano and Floyd Patterson.

Another outstanding American light-heavyweight world champion, Bob Foster, was knocked out in two rounds when he faced heavyweight title-holder Joe Frazier in 1970. Bob Fitzsimmons, born in Cornwall, successfully stepped up from middleweight (11st 6lb) to become world heavyweight champion in 1897 but James J Corbett, from whom he claimed the title, weighed only 13st 2lb. Today’s foremost heavyweight, Ukraine’s Wladimir Klitschko, scaled 17st 3lb when he defended the WBO and International Boxing Federation (IBF) heavyweight titles against American Tony Thompson. In the past two decades Michael Spinks, Michael Moorer and Roy Jones Jr, all Americans, won heavyweight title honours after reigning at light-heavyweight, and Evander Holyfield was cruiserweight champion before he knocked out Tyson’s conqueror, Buster Douglas.

Haye’s first-round knockout of WBC No 11-ranked heavyweight Tomasz Bonin in April 2007 represented a sample of his explosive potential, but his real pursuit of the big men will begin in November. Substantial change has already been made to his diet, with red meat now a staple and his overall food intake doubled, but he is careful still about what he eats. “As a cruiserweight, my body fat was about 8% and now it is around 12%, which will reduce itself slightly as we get closer to the fight,” explains Haye, who plans to follow up his November bout against a top 10-ranked heavyweight with an eliminator in February before challenging Klitschko next summer.

“I ate red meat only occasionally so that I could get my weight down but now I eat lean steak for breakfast every day, at least 1lb or 1½lb and cooked very rare, which gives me all the nutrients. To do the type of training I do, you need calories to get through it. For the muscle regeneration, you need to get the right calories as well.”

Haye has just finished building his own gym in Cyprus at the rear of an isolated scrap metal yard nestled between olive groves and Kyrenia’s rugged mountain range. Around the ring are the traditional furnishings of heavy bags, speed balls, medicine balls and skipping ropes but there are Preacher curl benches, a power cage for leg and upper body exercises including squats, presses and chin-ups and dumbbells, too. Inside the ropes he may be brutish, as his record of 21 wins (20 by stoppage) and one stoppage defeat would suggest, but outside he is a student of the science behind his sport.

“The old-school trainers would pass out if they saw all of these weights, but I do a lot of weight training because it builds up strength and endurance if done in the right way,” Haye says. “I’m not looking for bulk but strength. Strong and fast, that’s the combination you want.”

Liebling called boxing the sweet science but the science being applied in Cyprus is designed to produce a monster. Usually, British heavyweights do not come in such a package but Haye might be an unusual example of the species.

David Haye’s first fight at heavyweight will be broadcast live on Setanta Sports. To subscribe, call 08712 102 030 or visit www.setanta.com

The evolution of a heavyweight

JACK DEMPSEY, HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION 1919-26
‘Your basic training day runs 15 hours, from 6am to 9pm, with 15 rounds of various kinds of boxing [sparring, heavy bag, speed bag, shadowboxing], plus your roadwork, running five or six miles’ - A Flame of Pure Fire; Jack Dempsey and the Roaring 20s

SONNY LISTON, HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION 1962-64
‘Preparing for the biggest fight of his life [against Floyd Patterson for the title in 1962], Liston fortifies himself with two meals a day, walks seven miles in 7lb shoes, shadowboxes four rounds and skips for nine minutes to a jazz recording of The Night Train. Sometimes he rides a red bicycle’ - Newsweek

DAVID HAYE, CRUISERWEIGHT CHAMPION 2006-08
‘I don’t run long distances, I do a lot of sprint work and weight training, which some people in boxing regard as taboo. It’s not the type of stuff other boxers do, but they are the guys who have stayed at British level while I have moved on to the undisputed world championship’

7
The number of meals that David Haye eats per day. The meals contain a lot of raw vegetables and rare steaks and portions are double what he used to eat as a cruiserweight when he fought at just over 14st. He now tips the scales at 16st 2¾lb

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