By Seth Green: British heavyweight David Haye got some bad news after IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko’s 9th round stoppage of Ruslan Chagaev last Saturday night when Wladimir said “Haye has a dirty mouth…He needs to get the line. I simply can’t rely on him.” There you have it. It appears that Wladimir, 33, will no longer be allowing the 28-year-old Haye an exception to fight him without Haye proving that he belongs in the same ring with the Ukrainian by fighting his way into the position like he perhaps should have done in the first place.
Haye was given a shot at Wladimir’s boxing title after having fought only Monte Barrett last year. Rather than waiting for Haye to become his mandatory challenger, Wladimir gave into Haye and agreed to fight him after the British heavyweight repeatedly called him out almost daily in the media for months.
In hindsight, Wladimir probably shouldn’t have rewarded Haye for his trash talking, because it gave Haye an easy path to a title shot without him having to prove that he belonged in the ring with Wladimir. Fans of Haye feel that he didn’t have to prove that he could beat a good heavyweight, since he had previously held the WBA/WBC/WBO cruiserweight titles in 2008. However, given that there were a handful of heavyweights in front of Haye, in my view Haye should have at least proven that he could beat at least one or maybe two of them before getting a title shot against Wladimir.
“He [Haye] has to deserve the fight for the championship and I have the choice,” Wladimir said. Unfortunately, it’s doubtful that Haye will have to work his way into a title shot, because it’s looking more and more like Wladimir’s brother Vitali, the WBC heavyweight champion, will be giving Haye a shot at his title in September.
Vitali appears to be less stringent about Haye having to beat a top fighter to work his way into the position to fight him and is willing to fight him now. Haye, however, still wants to fight Wladimir, but will have to wait on that for awhile. If Vitali makes quick work of Haye, it might take a considerable amount of time before Haye gets his wish to fight against Wladimir. Depending on how badly Vitali beats Haye, it could be never.
There’s a lot of huge heavyweight contenders in front of Haye, and because of David’s unproven record as a heavyweight, it’s unclear whether he has the chin or the size to compete at the heavyweight level. At 215, Haye would be at a huge disadvantage against any of the top contenders in the heavyweight division and totally dwarfed by the 6’8” 250 pound Vitali.
Haye was bored by Wladimir’s victory over Chagaev on Saturday, saying “I watched Wladimir fight in a pub and people were walking out after the first round. It was a snooze fest. People were queuing up for hot dogs instead of watching.”