By Michael Liberman: Recently, WBA/WBO cruiserweight champion David Haye (21-1, 20 KOs) has come out and flatly turned down a potential fight against British heavyweight Matt Skelton that was offered up to him for his next fight at heavyweight, saying that he’s not interested in fighting a granddad, obviously a shot at the fact that Skelton, 41, is 14 years older than him. Instead, Haye, 27, is looking reportedly interested in taking on former heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman, who’s fighting James Toney next month on July 16th.

It’s unclear whether Haye is being sincere about his interested in fighting Rahman or just talking to hear himself, but if he is in fact interested in him, that’s a fairly ambitious for Haye to take for his first bout at heavyweight. Technically, it’s Haye’s second fight at heavyweight, his first being against Polish heavyweight Tomasz Bonin, who Haye stopped in the 1st round in April 2007. This time, however, Haye intends on staying at heavyweight for good and not moving back down to cruiserweight. Haye would have made the move up to the heavyweight division in November 2007, after his 7th round stoppage of WBC/WBO cruiserweight champion Jean Marc Mormeck, but Haye was almost immediately offered a big-money bout against WBO cruiserweight champion Enzo Maccarinelli in March 2008.

The fight was supposed to have been a competitive one, in which Maccarinelli was thought to be a fighter that could give Haye some big problems and perhaps beat him. As it turned out, however, Haye completely destroyed Maccarinelli in an easy 3rd round TKO. Since that time, there’s been a lot of speculation about who Haye’s next opponent would be. Not to wait for anyone, Haye went looking for his own opponent, going directly after IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, whom he called out a number of times both in the media and in a one-on-one meeting with Klitschko.

However, Wladimir instead turned down Haye’s bold challenge, telling him essentially to put on some weight and get in line. However, Haye came out of the exchange looking even better than before, as he’d showed tremendous courage in challenging Wladimir, the fighter perceived by many boxing writers and fans alike to be the best fighter in the heavyweight division. Wladimir, however, seemed taken aback by Haye’s bold challenge and looked more than a little frightened of him judging by Wladimir’s body language during their meeting at a charity event. As much as some people are slightly put off by Haye’s insults about the heavyweight division as a whole, you got to like him for the boldness of his attitude.

In terms of courage, Haye seems fearless, unafraid to fight any of the top heavyweights regardless of who they are. Following in those same lines, Haye has come out and said recently that he’s interested in fighting Rahman, who’s only two years removed from his championship form. At this point, Rahman, 35, hasn’t said whether he’d be interested in fighting Haye, but one would hope that he would. That said, it would be a risky bout for him to take without a title on the line, and for that reason I’m not sure whether Rahman would want to take a risky fight against a fighter as young, fast and as powerful as Haye.

Though I have no doubts that Rahman could knock Haye out if he could land his big right hand. The problem with that, though, is that Haye is often the one that lands first in the early going, both his devastating left hook and powerful right hand. If he connects with either, he’s got the type of one-punch power that would make a short night’s work of Rahman.