By Dan Ambrose: The father of Joe Calzaghe, Enzo, has recently come out with a stern warning to WBA/WBC cruiserweight champion David Haye, letting him know that his career may be in jeopardy if his upcoming March 8th bout against WBO cruiserweight champion Enzo Maccarinelli goes 12-rounds. Haye, a knockout artist accustomed to ending his bouts early, has struggled with his stamina in fights against Carl Thompson, who stopped Haye in the 5th round after he punched himself out in their September 2004 bout, and against Giacobbe Fragomeni, a fight in which Haye took an awful amount of punishment as he tired out after the 6th round in November 2006.
In an interview with Satanta Sport’s website, Calzaghe Sr. said “You can’t put a horseshoe on the chin to protect it so if Haye connects with Enzo he has a chance but he should worry about what will happen if he doesn’t. The way we train what people do in three minutes we do in one minute. Haye has never fought anyone like Enzo. No one needs to tell me any strategy. Who’d have thought Gavin Rees would win a world title and at light welterweight? If Haye goes 12 rounds it will be the end of his career.”
Clearly, from reading what Calzaghe Sr. is saying, it would seem to indicate that his fighter Maccarinelli is going to try and take Haye into the deep water and drown him. Maccarinelli, an extraordinary boxer/puncher, has shown to be able to take his power late into the fight and still score knockouts. His bout with Haye, however, will be a difficult test of his endurance and chin, for if Maccarinelli slips up for even a second in the early rounds, it could be all over for him. Haye punches as hard as the top heavyweights in the sport, and easily stands out as the hardest puncher in the cruiserweight division.
Before his fight with Maccarinelli was recently signed, Haye was making preparations to move to the heavyweight division where he could take advantage of his awesome power to bring in much bigger paydays than he has been accustomed to getting while fighting as a cruiserweight. To be sure, Haye would be a formidable opponent for any of the top heavyweights, even Wladimir Klitschko, teh IBF/WBO heavyweight champion, who stunk up Madison Square Garden in last Saturday’s dull unification bout with WBO heavyweight champion Sultan Ibragimov.