Haye would beat Joshua, says Charles

By Boxing News - 08/26/2016 - Comments

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By Scott Gilfoid: Don Charles, the trainer for Dereck Chisora, thinks that former two division world champion David “Hayemaker” Haye (28-2, 26 KOs) would beat unbeaten IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua (17-0, 17 KOs) if the two British heavyweights were to face each other right now.

Charles thinks that the 35-year-old Haye’s ability to make his opponents miss would help him beat the much bigger 6’6” 245lb Joshua. The problem is that Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn isn’t in a hurry to match his money maker against Haye.

While Hearn has been talking about wanting to make that fight in 2017, I’d be very surprised if he does. The only way I see Hearn letting Joshua fight Haye next year is if we see a poor performance from the “Haymaker” in his next fight in 2016. At this point, I don’t even know if Haye is going to fight again this year, because he’s been out of the ring since his easy win over little known fringe contender Arnold Gjergjaj last May.

It’s unclear if Haye is getting content with his wipeouts of over-matched lower level fringe contenders and doesn’t want to take a risk of fighting a legitimate contender or if he’s got some other problem that has him stultified.

“Right now if he was to fight Haye, I’d pick David Haye, if you were to put them in the ring together tomorrow,” said Charles to skysports.com. “Haye is a master at making people miss. He was making Klitschko miss miserably. He lost because he was too negative. Had he jumped on Wladimir from round six he’d have beaten him.”

I agree that Haye would have beaten Wladimir under the right circumstances. First off, Haye would have never beaten Wladimir with him coming into the fight at just 210lbs to the 242lbs that the Ukrainian weighed in for the fight. That was just too much of a wide disparity in weight. If He weighed in at 227lbs like we saw in his first fight back against Mark De Mori after his long layoff, then I think Wladimir would have been in trouble.

Haye seems more powerful the heavier he is. Even with the extra weight, Haye wouldn’t have beaten Wladimir on that night unless he fought aggressively. Haye looked so timid and afraid to get hit in that fight. It wasn’t until the 12th round that Haye actually threw a meaningful punch. Haye hurt Wladimir a little with a big right hand in that round. Had Haye continued to pour it on, he probably would have gotten Wladimir out of there, but he didn’t do it.

Haye fights a different way against good fighters than he does against the mostly poor fighters he faces. He’s not nearly aggressive enough when facing good heavyweights, and this leads to him not throwing enough punches to win. We saw that in Haye’s fight against Nikolay Valuev in 2009, and we saw it again in his match with Wladimir. I thought Haye deserved to lose against Valuev, because he was outworked and out-landed in that fight. Like in his fight against Wladimir, Haye only fought hard in the 12th round against Valuev. In the other 11 rounds, Haye was like a timid rabbit, running around the ring, trying not to get hit and doing zero. Even in the 12th, Haye only had one brief flurry of punches. The rest of the round, he was quiet as he’d been earlier.

As much as I’d like to see Haye resurrect his career with a knockout win over Joshua, I don’t see it happening. Coming events cast their shadows before, and Haye is not going to be any different against Joshua than he was in his other important fights against Wladimir and Valuev. Haye’s mindset seems to be set at this point in his career, and it’s not going to be changed in my view. If some self-help guru got with Haye to change the way he thinks inside the ring, then maybe he would have a good chance of knocking Joshua out, but I don’t see that happening.

Besides all that, I don’t think Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn is going to let Haye anywhere near his money maker if he’s fighting at a high level. You can see the reluctance there on Hearn’s part. When Haye’s name is mentioned, Hearn’s face seems to change and it’s pretty clear that he has no desire to make that fight a reality right now. That might change in another three to five years when Haye starts slowing down and looking like a shot fighter. Then I can see Hearn beating down Haye’s door with the red carpet treatment to get him to agree to a fight against Joshua. Until then, I don’t see Hearn even considering making that fight. It’s too dangerous for his money maker Joshua, and I think the last thing Hearn wants is for that sweet gravy train of money to come to a stop.

Joshua is expected back in the ring on November 26 against either Kubrat Pulev or Bermane Stiverne. Joseph Parker is supposedly also in the mix, but he seriously has NO shot at fighting Joshua in 2016. That fight is going to be dragged out until 2017. Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn wants Parker to fight on his undercard on November 26, possibly against David Price. The idea is to help build up the Joshua-Parker fight for next year, but I wouldn’t be surprised if is Hearn’s way of selling more tickets and to bring in more PPV buys on Sky Box Office.