By William Mackay: Trainer Emanuel Steward feels that former WBA heavyweight champion David Haye (25-2, 23 KO’s) doesn’t deserve a fight against WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko after the poor performance that Haye put in last time he fought against IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko last July.

Haye, 31, lost that fight by a 12 round unanimous decision and seemed content just to survive to the finish without getting knocked out. Steward, who trains Wladimir, was disgusted by Haye’s lack of an effort in that fight and feels he stopped trying early on when he realized he wasn’t good enough to beat Wladimir.

Steward said to the Daily Mail “ David doesn’t deserve it. His performance against Wladimir was terrible, appalling…Although from David’s viewpoint, you have to suppose he would only be doing it for the money.”
Steward is right.

Haye doesn’t deserve the fight because he’s done nothing to show that he’s improved. He refuses to redeem himself by taking on one of the other top heavyweights and beating one or two of them to show that he’s learned from the mistake.

By not wanting to fight anyone else other than the Klitschkos, it just makes Haye seem like he’s only taking the fight for the payday and not because he actually feels he can win this fight.

Steward seems to have the same idea about Haye, wondering whether he’ll come to fight or just look to survive to the finish again.

Steward said “Vitali is bigger and hits harder but he comes straight in and doesn’t have the same balance and elusive movement as Wladimir. So David might give him a little more trouble. But that supposes he would come to fight this time, which on his performance against Wladimir is not certain.”
It’s not just the Wladimir fight that makes you wonder whether Haye would come to fight.

You can look at Haye’s non effort against Nikolay Valuev in 2009, in a fight that Haye barely won by a 12 round majority decision, but one where he only averaged 10 punches thrown per round. Haye looked absolutely terrified. Haye also did zero in the first two rounds of his fight against Audley Harrison last year. It’s kind of obvious that Haye would do little more than throw 10 to 15 punches per round against Vitali. That wouldn’t be enough to win any rounds, and it would make it easy for Vitali to win by a lopsided decision if he couldn’t catch up to Haye to knock him out.