By William Mackay: David Haye and his manager/trainer Adam Booth are not pleased with the referee [Mickey Vann] that has been assigned for the July 14th bout between Haye and Dereck Chisora. It seems as if they have an issue with the 68-year-old Vann’s age, and perhaps his size as well.

Booth said to thesun.co.uk “Frank Warren knows full well I will kick and scream like a petulant child on this matter. The fact that the Luxembourg Boxing Federation would nominate a 68-year-old featherweight to be in charge of a bout between two aggressive heavyweights, with a known grudge, in a fight that is certain to get physical and ugly.”

The two fighters will have to agree on the referee, so we’re likely to see another referee substituted in the next few days. Hopefully the two fighters can agree on someone so that there’s no hard feelings going into the bout.

The chances are high that the fight will have some extracurricular activity going on between Chisora and Haye. That’s par for the course, though, because both fighters tend to foul on occasion. Haye is the more dangerous of the two because of his looping shots that sometimes wind up hitting his opponents behind the head. He’s also dangerous with his holding and hitting. He does this with such speed that it’s often too late for the referee to do anything by the time Haye has thrown five or six powerful shots in a blink of an eye while holding onto his opponent.

Chisora is lucky because he has a good chin, so maybe he won’t get stunned by Haye if he does foul him in some manner. But with rabbit shots, it doesn’t matter how good a fighter’s chin is because those shots are hard to take.