By Scott Gilfoid: Well, so much for notion of former WBA heavyweight champion David Haye (26-2, 24 KO’s) taking the mandatory route to get a world title shot against one of the heavyweight champions. Haye is leaning in the direction of retirement now, and will be meeting his trainer Adam Booth next week to decide on what’s best for him.
Haye recently said he was going to use that method to get a title shot after being ignored by both the Klitschko brothers in getting an undeserved title shot.
Haye is now reportedly having second thoughts about going through the long process of working his way up through the mandatory route given the amount of time that he’d likely have to wait before he eventually was made the mandatory.
According to the Guardian, Haye only wants to fight the Klitschko brothers, and he doesn’t want to have to wait months or possibly even years to get a shot at Wladimir and Vitali’s world titles. Haye is ranked #5 by the WBC, but there’s already four guys in front of him, and it likely will take years for Haye to get a crack at that title, especially with the Chris Arreola vs. Bermane Stiverne eliminator fight continually being postponed over and over again for one reason or another.
I had a feeling that Haye would choose retirement rather than putting in the hard work of fighting himself into position to become the mandatory challenger for one of the Klitschkos. It takes eons of time for a normal heavyweight to work himself into the mandatory positive and given that Haye has already made his millions, I figured he couldn’t be patient to work his way into a title shot the way that normal fighters typically do.
Instead of wasting time trying to become the mandatory, Haye should be looking to make the biggest fights possible by taking on and beating guys like Tyson Fury, David Price, Tomasz Adamek, and Kubrat Pulev.
If Haye were to beat some or all of those heavyweights in a short period of time, the pressure what be so great on Wladimir that he would be pretty much forced into fighting Haye again. But of course Haye won’t do that because it just looks like he wants the title shot against Wladimir without having to work for it.
So if Haye retires now could you call him a quitter? I don’t know but it sure does look like he doesn’t want to do the hard work that other fighters do in order to get to the top spot. In that case, it’s just as well that he quits.
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