Samuel Peter Gives Warning To Haye

By Jack Kurr: WBC heavyweight champion Samuel Peter (30-1, 23 KOs) recently advised David Haye (21-1, 20 KOs) to take things slow while climbing the latter in the heavyweight division, saying to Santasports writer Spencer Fearon, “It [the heavyweight division] is not a place for kids…The people who jump up from cruiserweight to heavyweight, I will send them back.” Peter, 27, knows from what he speaks as he twice defeated James Toney, another cruiserweight who attempted to make a go at it in the heavyweight division.

Like Toney, Haye, 27, has appeared in to be in a rush since making his intentions public about wanting to move up to the heavyweight division shortly after his 2nd round TKO of Enzo Maccarinelli on March 8th. Haye, a fighter that doesn’t shy away from making bold comments in the media, immediately called out IBF heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, saying he has “No chin” and fought in an “embarrassing” fashion in his recent title bout against then WBO heavyweight champion Sultan Ibragimov. The comments from Haye failed to initiate much of a reaction from Klitschko, who appeared mildly amused and responded that Haye was making noise in the media to bring attention to himself.

If Haye wants an exciting bout, he should focus on trying to be next in line for a shot at Peter. The best way for this to happen, naturally, is to knock off a couple of the top 10 heavyweights in the WBC, like Vladimir Virchis, Juan Carlos Gomez and Alexander Dimitrenko. If Haye can knock off a couple of those fighters, he won’t be able to be ignored by Peter without creating a huge stir in the media. Like I said, Peter won’t side step him if he’s ranked high, but clearly Haye has got to beat a couple of legitimate heavyweights to earn it the right way.

Besides that, it would be a huge step up in class to go from fighting a relatively hard puncher like Maccarinelli to that of Peter, who hits much harder in my view. If Haye had problems against Carl Thompson, Jean-Marc Mormeck and Giacobbe Fragomeni, he’d be in terrible shape against Peter.