Haye doubts Vitali Klitschko wants to fight him

By Boxing News - 09/23/2011 - Comments

Image: Haye doubts Vitali Klitschko wants to fight himBy William Mackay: Former WBA heavyweight champion David Haye (25-2, 23 KO’s) has doubts whether WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko (43-2, 40 KO’s) is really interested in fighting him, as he’s not heard anything from Vitali’s management about a fight in 2012.

Haye thinks the 40-year-old Klitschko merely mentioned his name to get attention after Vitali’s win over Tomasz Adamek earlier this month on September 10th.

“Vitali said after the Adamek fight that he wanted to fight me now,” Haye said in an interview at the Telegraph.co.uk. “But I think it’s all talk. He realized he was not going to get any headlines for knocking out Adamek, so he threw my name out there. For some reason I don’t really think he wants to do it. If they contract us, and talk to us and are serious about it, I’ll consult my team.”

In other words, Haye will consult Adam Booth, his manager/trainer about it. Haye needs to sit back and wait a while Vitali just finished fighting and he’s probably relaxing. He knows he’s got the Haye fight there, and he’s not going to be pushing immediately because there’s no point. Haye will be there, because he unfortunately doesn’t have any other options. That’s Haye’s problem.

If Haye were smart he would take on some of the other top heavyweights in the division like Robert Helenius, David Price or Tyson Fury to try and redeem himself after his embarrassing performance in his one-sided loss to Wladimir Klitschko last July. But Haye only wants to face the Klitschko brothers and no one else. He’s already exposed his hand. Wladimir wants nothing to do with a rematch with Haye unless he faces some other heavyweights to rebuild his name, and of course Haye doesn’t want to do that. He just wants the Klitschkos – and the payday that goes with it.

Haye probably isn’t in the best situation to get the contract terms he received for the Wladimir fight, which could make it very hard for him to put together a fight with Vitali. If Haye thinks he’s going to get a 50-50 deal again, he’s going to be sadly disappointed. He no longer has a title now and is just another one of Vitali’s challengers.

I think that could be a big problem in putting together a fight between him and Vitali. If Haye believes he deserves equal footing, then the fight won’t happen. Haye can probably make decent money if he were to take on someone like Bernard Hopkins, or one of the other smaller fighters from other weight classes. There’s not a lot of other appealing options for Haye at heavyweight unless he’s willing to take on Fury, Price or Helenius.



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