Haye’s trainer sees a weakness in Vitali Klitschko, but does Haye have the tools to exploit them?

By Scott Gilfoid: In an article in the Guardian, Adam Booth, the trainer and manager for World Boxing Association heavyweight champion David Haye, said that he spotted some flaws in WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko’s game, saying “It was a typical Vitali performance. He does the same thing over and over again and everybody that he fights is unable to pose a question of his style. He [Vitali Klitschko] plants his feet in range, uses his height to lean back out of the way of hitting coming back that may have substance on it and uses his strong arms to push so repetitively.”

It’s all well and good that Booth, a non-fighter, has spotted some flaws in Klitschko’s game. However, what good it will do his fighter David Haye is the real question. Klitschko, 38, defeated American Kevin Johnson by a lopsided 12 round decision on Saturday night, winning every round of their bout in Berne, Switzerland. Johnson, 30, never even tried to make a fight of it.

Instead, he rested against the ropes the entire fight using a modern rope-a-dope strategy that seemed to be used mainly for survival purposes rather than to win the fight. In the times that Johnson attacked Klitschko in the fight, Johnson had major problems and was hammered by right hands.

Haye is the same height as Johnson at 6’3″, but with a much shorter reach than Johnson at 78″ compared to Johnson’s 82″ reach. Haye’s jab is not even close to being as good as Johnson’s jab. As much as Booth likes to talk about the flaws he spotted in Klitschko’s game, Haye wouldn’t likely have the tools to take advantage of him. And I’d be willing to bet that Haye would have had serious problems against Johnson last Saturday night. Haye wouldn’t have been able to knock Johnson out the way that Kevin was resting on the ropes.

Haye would have been catching jabs in the face all night long and it would have been interesting to see if the judges would have given him the decision if his work rate was as poor as it was in Haye’s bout against WBA heavyweight champion Nikolay Valuev. Throwing 10 punches per round wouldn’t get the job done against Johnson, and against Vitali, who threw over 1000 punches on Saturday night, Haye would be in a near hopeless situation.

Booth also said this about Vitali Klitschko: “He does the same thing every second of every round of every fight and it amazes me that these so-called elite heavyweights cannot figure out that there is a simple answer to that style – to be able to land your punches.” The problem is that most of them are too short, too weak and not skilled enough to do anything about< Booth. I hate really hate to say this, but I think Haye falls into the category I just described.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Haye was a decent cruiserweight. If Haye had stayed at that weight class, he might have been able to hold down his titles until running into someone like Tomasz Adamek, but at heavyweight, Haye is simply too small, too timid and not active enough with his work rate. If Haye had the chin like Mike Tyson and the ferocity to go along with it, I still think Haye would have problems against the likes of the Klitschko brothers.

The problem is Haye simply doesn’t throw enough punches per round. I’ve seen many of his fights while he was a cruiserweight, and Haye was never a busy fighter even then. In one the handful of fights in which Haye had to throw a moderate amount of shots, like in his fight against Giacobbe Fragomeni and Carl Thompson, Haye looked totally gassed out early in the fights and ended up taking a lot of punishment.

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