By Scott Gilfoid: Tomorrow night, former cruiserweight champion David Haye (21-1, 20 KOs) will be making his biggest step of his new heavyweight career in a battle against Monte Barrett (34-6, 20 KOs) in a 10-round bout at the O2 Arena (Millenium Dome), Greenwich, in London.
Haye, 28, has a tremendous amount of things riding on this fight, not the least of it being his entire career.
Haye has said previously that he might step away from boxing should he be beaten by the 37 year-old Barrett. To be sure, he might as well, because if he loses to Barrett, who most boxing experts feel that he’ll beat quite handily, then it wipes out a potential 2009 big paying title challenge against IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko.
It would also likely ruin any chances of facing Wladimir’s brother, World Boxing Council heavyweight champion, Vitali Klitschko who Haye has mentioned as one of his future targets. If Haye can’t beat Barrett, then all of that goes out the window and Haye will be forced to start from scratch against lower level opponents.
Haye’s taking a big gamble, many people think, by going from the relatively soft opposition that he’s feasted on in the cruiserweight division to the much bigger, better and more powerful heavyweights. In point of fact, Barrett isn’t ranked in the top 10 in any of the alphabet ranking bodies in the heavyweight division, yet even at 37, he would probably be good enough to hold one or all of the cruiserweight titles if he were to inclined to fight at that weight.
In other words, Haye’s former status of being the top cruiserweight in the division, matters little due to the lower quality fighters that he’s taken on over there. Haye, however, is hoping to settle things quickly on Saturday and will be trying to get Barrett out of there before he can get started with his own offense.
Haye is already predicting that he will take him out in the first round, and if not then, he figures to take him out shortly after that. That may or may not be the case, but if he’s wrong about it and Barrett stays up under his first round onslaught, this could be a very difficult fight for him, especially if Barrett can get his own offense started up.
Haye recently said that his speed is even better at heavyweight than it was as a cruiserweight, something that seems rather ridiculous when you think about it. He’s gained close to 30 pounds since moving up in weight, and that could be a factor in the fight. Having to carry an extra thirty pounds on his body, whether that be muscle or fat, will be a problem if the fight should go beyond five rounds.
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