I fear David Haye is going to let me down again.

The Hayemaker’s “retirement” fools nobody and is merely another game in his attempt to be taken seriously among the heavyweight division’s biggest names, the Klitschkos.

Talks with Vitali have apparently still been going on, even though Haye claimed he had hung his gloves up after turning 31 on Thursday. This week’s ruse may be simply that as they look to sign up a showdown early next year.

And, like any boxing fan, I hope it takes place – and that our man does himself justice this time. I have my doubts.

I really want to be a Haye fan. He’s a clever, charismatic and, unlike Lennox Lewis, a very English fighter.

He was the other half in one of my favourite small-time fights, walking on to the end of a Carl Thompson thunderbolt. It left him seeing Tweety Pie stars and his reputation for having a glass jaw was born.

But I liked the way the young Haye bounced back from that hammer blow as if nothing untoward had happened. Soon he was blitzing all cruiserweights before him until there were none left to stop him making the jump to the next division.

Straight away, he talked the talk. He won the freak show with Nikolai Valuev to become the first Brit since Lewis to claim a version of the world title.

We were all led to believe that Haye was the saviour of the heavyweights; the human face to loosen the clinch of the Klitschko robots.

He picked on Wladimir, seen as the easier target of the brothers, and seemed to get under his skin. The unflinchable “Dr Steelhammer” looked anything but – or so we thought.

But Haye froze on his greatest stage, left mumbling excuses about a broken toe after Wladimir had dished out an embarrassingly one-sided lesson.

As so often happens with losing challengers, especially those who have hyped themselves up, Haye found himself friendless and unwanted. From hero to zero in 36 minutes.

Now the only road to redemption involves navigating the brooding menace of Vitali, the “dangerous” one. I still think the fight will go ahead because the Klitschko camp will see Haye as damaged goods.

But I fear it won’t be much of a fight as such.