Has Haye’s interest in fighting Vitali Klitschko died?

By Scott Gilfoid: You may not be the only one that’s noticed that World Boxing Association heavyweight champion David Haye’s interest in fighting WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko appears to have dissipated somewhat somewhat since Haye captured the WBA title with a close 12 round majority decision against Nikolay Valuev on November 7th. Recently, Vitali said that Haye and him had a verbal agreement to fight next year in 2010. With all the talking that Haye has made about wanting to fight the Klitschko brothers, you would think that this would be something that he would be agreeable.

After all, Haye has been name dropping the Klitschko brothers since last year, and has become better known to fans because of that, despite having very limited heavyweight experience. However, Haye distanced himself from a fight with Vitali, saying “Apparently we [Vitali Klitschko and Haye] have some sort of agreement, but I have no idea where he has got that from. He has made that up from somewhere. I haven’t actually talked to them [the Klitschko brothers] since before the Valuev fight.”

That sounds like Haye isn’t exactly frothing at the mouth to get a fight with Vitali Klitschko anymore. I wonder what has happened to cause Haye to back off and cool his jets. Is it that Haye is now going to try and milk his WBA title for as long as he can before fighting one of the Klitschko brothers? Many fighters would look forward to fighting one of the Klitschko brothers because it would mean a good payday.

However, Haye doesn’t seem to be all that interested like he was before. Could it be that Haye will take the easy path and focus on fighting only WBC heavyweight contenders and forget about unifying the titles? Haye talks about his legacy all that, but we haven’t seen Haye going in the direction of following in the footsteps of heavyweight greats like Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield, have we?

Those fighters were all about facing the best in the division and going after the biggest names. Thus far, Haye’s experience at heavyweight is limited to Tomasz Bonin, Monte Barrett and Valuev. Haye will be facing John Ruiz in March to defend his title. After that, Haye may be facing Valuev in a rematch. That will likely take care of all of Haye’s fights in 2010.

Haye says “After I’ve beaten him [Ruiz] up good style, I’m going to sit round the table and then we’ll talk about the fight with Vitali.” I somehow doubt it. I think Vitali’s name will be mentioned in a namedropping fashion by Haye, but I doubt very seriously he’ll fight him. But it is amusing to see that Haye sounds like he’s the one calling the shots.

For a fighter with only brief championship experience at cruiserweight and heavyweight, Haye talks as if he’s the one who’s been dominating the heavyweight division off and on for years, not Vitali. It’s pretty amusing. I wonder if Haye really believes that he’s that good. I don’t know how that he can sustain that inner belief after watching his performance against Valuev. Haye ran like a virgin on prom night in that fight. That was some of the worst heavyweight fighting I’ve ever seen before. Haye barely beat Valuev, a fighter that Vitali would literally toy with if they were to fight.

Personally, I see Haye being no better than Kevin Johnson, who recently was dominated by Vitali in a one-sided fight.

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