Herbie Hide - Pro Career

Pro Career

Hide has fought for most of his career at heavyweight, but later in his career decided to take a step down to cruiserweight. He is known as The Dancing Destroyer and has had a successful career, rising to domestic success at a very young age for a heavyweight. Hide has twice won the lesser regarded (at the time) WBO heavyweight title.

His career began in 1989 with a second round win and he racked up a total of 25 successive wins, all but one inside the distance. His level of opposition was respectable and included fighters such as Craig Petersen, Mike Dixon, Jeff Lampkin, James Pritchard, Jean Chanet, Jerry Halstead and Everett Martin

At 25-0 (24 kos), Hide challenged Michael Bentt for the WBO heavyweight title in March 1994 at Millwall Football Stadium, Millwall, London. Bentt had won the title by knocking out the heavily favoured Tommy Morrison in one round. Hide outboxed and knocked out Bentt in 7 rounds.

A year later, Hide defended his title against former undisputed champion Riddick Bowe. Hide used his speed to outbox Bowe early on and managed to hurt Bowe several times during the contest, however Bowe's size and class eventually told, and Hide was floored six times. Hide impressed with his courage, repeatedly picking himself off the canvas, before he was knocked out in the sixth round.

After his loss to Bowe, Hide fought twice in 1996, winning both by KO against Michael Murray and Frankie Swindell before earning another shot at the now-vacant WBO title in June 1997 against 38 year old one-time IBF title holder Tony Tucker, despite Tucker losing three of his previous five fights. Hide knocked out the overweight Tucker in two rounds. Hide defended his WBO title twice in 1998 with quick stoppages of late replacement cruiserweight clubfighter Damon Reed, and German Willi Fischer.

In June 1999 Hide faced the 6 ft 8in Ukrainian giant Vitali Klitschko, only the second world ranked fighter he had actually faced after Riddick Bowe. Hide, favoured to win at the time, was knocked out in two rounds.

Hide never featured as a main contender at heavyweight again, his only mildly notable wins coming against Joseph Chingangu (who also knocked Hide out in one of Hide's many comebacks) and Alexander Vasiliev.

In 2006, Hide stepped down a weight division to a more natural weight division at cruiserweight. Since then he has won fourteen successive fights, most of which took place in Germany. Hide defeated Mikhail Nasyrov in December 2007 to win the WBC International cruiserweight title.

In November 2008, when Johnathon Banks dropped out of a WBO cruiserweight title clash at London's ExCel Arena with just four days notice, Hide was announced as a potential opponent for former champion Enzo Maccarinelli, for the vacant title. This was despite Hide having fought just two weeks earlier, a victory against Lukasz Rusiewicz. Hide then fought in the Crusierweight Prizefighter tournament. In the tournament, he defeated Welshman Wayne Brooks by unanimous decision, but was badly cut on the right eye in the process. He pulled out of the tournament to avoid losing his high WBC ranking due to the cut.

Despite having only boxed three world ranked heavyweights in his long career (Bentt, Bowe and Klitschko) and being knocked out by two of them, as well as knocked out by journeyman Joe Chingangu, Hide claimed in his autobiography that he would have beaten all time greats Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson.