By Aaron Klein: After watching last night’s entertaining heavyweight clash between top heavyweight contender David Haye (22-1, 21 KOs) and a badly over-matched Monte Barrett, I have major doubts as to whether Haye is ready at this time to fight either of the Klitschko brothers, especially Vitali.
On the face of it, Haye defeated Barrett by a 5th round stoppage and knocked him down a slew of times in the process, yet he showed a lot of vulnerabilities that either of the Klitschko brothers would easily take advantage of if they were to face Haye at this point in time. When Haye wasn’t swinging for the fences with almost every punch against Barrett, he was leaving himself wide open on defense for counter shots.
Barrett obviously didn’t have it together enough in way of boxing skills on this night to take advantage of it, but I’m pretty sure that Haye might not be so lucky against the taller, faster, more powerful and skilled Klitschko brothers. Haye showed good power at times, but the punches that he knocked Barrett down with seemed to be nothing special.
Indeed, he looks to have lost some of his power in the process of moving up from the cruiserweight division. A couple of the shots, though, might trouble Wladimir, who has a history of having a weak chin, if he were to let his guard down like Barrett often did.
But I doubt that Wladimir would leave himself open as often as Barrett did in the fight, making it a much tougher task for Haye to land his big haymaker shots. As far as Vitali goes, he wouldn’t have been fazed in the least by any of Haye’s power shots against Barrett on Saturday night, and would have taken them without any problems.
Meanwhile on the reverse side, I see Haye having tremendous problems taking the power shots from either of the Klitschko brothers, especially if they’re able to connect with more than a handful of big shots in any given round. That’s probably where the danger lies for Haye.
Given that his chin isn’t really up to the heavyweight mark of yet, I doubt seriously that he could take more than a couple of power shots from either of the brother without going down like he did in the 5th round after getting clipped by a big left hand from Barrett. Both Klitschko brothers punch much harder than Barrett and are able to throw those kinds of big shots with every punch.
Unless Haye were to change his fighting style dramatically by running, covering up, holding and jabbing exclusively, I see him being in deep trouble against either of the Klitschko brothers right now. I know he’s eager to fight them, but from what I saw of him on Saturday night, he’s nothing more than cannon fodder for either of them right now.
Hopefully, his management will try and work on his major defensive flaws, teach him to try and block more punches, and get him to stop throwing as many wild punches as he often does. I doubt it, however. Haye is what he is, and no matter what kind of training he receives now until the time he fights one of the Klitschko brothers is going to change that.
When the time comes for him to fight either of them, he’ll rush forward madly, swinging for the fences and will be met with a monstrous right hand counter shot and dropped. If he gets up, he’ll likely be planted again and again. Don’t get me wrong, Haye’s a good fighter, but more of a work in progress rather than someone ready to take on polished heavyweights like the Klitschko brothers.
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