By Scott Gilfoid: David Haye (26-2, 24 KOs) is really excited about Tyson Fury beating Wladimir Klitschko last Saturday night to win all of Klitschko’s titles. Haye says he wants to face Fury so that he can capture his IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight titles that he won off of the 39-year-old Klitschko.
Haye isn’t so excited about beating the stuffing out of Fury, but rather he’s more interested in beating him so that he can win all of the titles that he now has in his collection. Haye feels that he has the style to whip Fury when/if that fight ever takes place.
I’m not sure that it ever will though now that Fury is talking about wanting no part of Haye ever.
“He [Fury] knows that my style would absolutely murder his style,” Haye said via Yahoo Sports. “He has to realize I’m not after him, I’m after what he has – the belts.”
Fury can make more cash fighting Klitschko again, and then battling WBC heavyweight talent Deontay Wilder for his WBC strap in a unification fight than he could in taking on Haye right now. The problem that Haye has is that he’s been out of the sport for too long, and he’s been forgotten by fans.
It’s been three years since he last fought in 2012, and that’s a lifetime ago. Haye needs to build back up his fan base by fighting frequently against better and better competition. He’s not going to do much in beating a bunch of unknowns while calling out Fury and Wilder, because the boxing public isn’t going to take him seriously.
I think if Haye fought aggressively in taking the fight to Fury, he’d probably knock him out quickly. But if Haye fought Fury the same way he did against other taller heavyweights like Wladimir and Nikolay Valuev, then Fury would definitely beaten both by KO. Haye did get the victory over Valuev in a close 12 round decision. However, Haye fought too timidly against those two fighters, and really only fought hard in the 12th round in both fights.
If you look at those fights, Haye nailed Wladimir and Valuev with huge shots in the 12th that had them holding on. If Haye had fought with the same aggressiveness in the first 11 rounds in those fights, he probably would have knocked them out. I think the courage and confidence wasn’t there for Haye in those fights.
“It says a lot about a new champion that he’s saying he won’t fight the man who would generate the most amount of interest and money, and would be the biggest possible fight on the planet for him,” Haye said.
Haye does have the style to beat Fury in my view, but I think he’s going to make Haye wait a long, long time before he eventually gives him a shot. Whether Fury will still have his world titles by the time he does agree to fight Haye is the big question.
My guess is Fury’s world titles will be long gone by the time he gets needy and decides to fight Haye. By that point the power dynamics could change with Haye being in a power of strength due to his career getting back on the tracks and Fury’s career sinking into the mire following a series of knockout defeats.
I hate to say it, but I think Fury is a knockout waiting to happen. He fought a shot Wladimir Klitschko and barely beat him. Before that, Fury had fought weak opposition his entire career. If you Fury in with someone with punching, youth and talent like Wilder, then I see Fury getting knocked out cold.
I think a lot of other guys would KO Fury as well like Erkan Teper, Robert Helenius, Dillian Whyte, Anthony Joshua, Carlos Takam, Lucas Brown, Joseph Parker, Alexander Povetkin, Kubrat Pulev, Luis Ortiz and Bermane Stiverne. I’d say at least 14 to 15 heavyweights in the division would beat Fury. Unfortunately for the past his best Wladimir, he’s no longer one of them. He made the mistake of not fighting Fury when he was a little younger, because if he’s taken that fight three years ago, he’d have likely made easy work of Fury.
Haye will be fighting next month against #10 WBA Mark de Mori (30-1-2, 26 KOs) on January 16th at the O2 Arena in London, UK. The Haye-de Mori fight will be taking place on the same night as WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder’s fight. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is something that Haye is intentionally doing in order to try and attract interest in a match-up between him and Wilder.
Haye, 35, appears to have put on a lot of muscle in a short period of time since he started training again. In looking at his training photos, Haye looks pretty big already. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s in the low 220s. Unfortunately, that’s about as big as Haye can get without slowing down. He doesn’t have a large frame, so it’s useless for him to try and bulk up to the 240s so that he can match some of the larger heavyweights in the division.
Wilder weighs only around 230, and he’s a lot taller than the 6’2” Haye. What that tells you is that the big football player/body building type heavyweights aren’t able to punch any harder than the lighter heavyweights. It’s more about natural punching power and getting leverage on the shots. That’s why the 6’7” Wilder can arguably punch harder than anyone in the heavyweight division despite being outweighed by over 20 pounds by many of the guys in the division.
Haye needs to stay healthy and fight frequently for him to get in position to fight for a world title. But knowing Haye, he’ll either get injured or he’ll celebrate for a year by staying inactive if/when he beats a heavyweight decent heavyweight. That’s what Haye has been doing. He gets a solid win and then disappears for over a year while he rests on his laurels. His injury problems have complicated his efforts to keep his career on the tracks.
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