Is David Haye Looking To Face Vitali Klitschko Next?

By Jim Dower: It looks as if heavyweight David Haye (22-1, 21 KOs) is now changed his sights from a fight with IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko and is now looking at a fight with WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko instead, based on an interview he made at Setanta Sports.

Apparently, Haye, 28, has been hearing how Vitali has the better chin, and is tougher than Wladimir, and because of that, Haye is now reportedly more interested in a bout with the older Klitschko, saying that he would get more “accolades” from beating him. Whether or not Haye is serious remains to be seen.

However, if history is any guide, he generally is pretty transparent about his wishes and hides little, so if it’s Vitali he wants, that probably means that he’ll be going after him instead of Wladimir at this time. Vitali, though, still has a title defense coming up against his WBC number #1 mandatory challenger Juan Carlos Gomez.

But if Vitali can get by him, which is highly likely, then Haye could very well be next on the agenda for the 37 year-old Ukrainian. Haye said that he’d like to face Vitali in London if possible, though that may be more of a pipe dream for him than any kind of reality, because Vitali, the champion, will likely be looking to make the fight either in Germany or the U.S.

As for the fight, Haye might be making a tragic mistake by skipping over the soft-chinned Wladimir for the sake of wanting to face his stronger brother. At least in facing Wladimir, Haye would have a decent chance at taking him out in the early rounds of the fight.

Naturally, he would be a huge underdog in the fight, but if he came out hard in the first four rounds, he could very well surprise Wladimir with something big and take him out. However, if he takes on Vitali instead, who has an excellent chin, Haye could find himself taking a terribly beating, much worse than his 5th round stoppage to Carl Thompson in 2004.

In that fight, Haye dominated until running out of gas in the 5th. With the 6’8” 250 pound Vitali, though, Haye would he at a huge disadvantage, not just with size but also with power. Haye would be outweighed by 35 pounds and five inches shorter than him. The worse part, though, would be that Vitali would be able to take Haye’s big shots, but Haye probably wouldn’t be able to withstand absorbing more than two to three rounds of big shots from Vitali without folding badly.

It’s one thing beating up a smallish journeyman like Monte Barrett and quite another thing to take on a fighter as big and powerful as Vitali. Overall, Vitali is much more of a solid heavyweight than Haye probably could ever hope to be. Vitali is a real heavyweight, and a big one at that, whereas Haye is more of a blown up cruiserweight who’s trying to find his way in the division. He’s probably good enough to beat the James Toney and the Sultan Ibragimov-type heavyweights, but he’d be in big trouble against the bigger heavyweights like the Klitschkos.

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