By Thomas Hanson: Moments after IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko’s (51-3, 45 KOs) 11th round TKO victory over challenger Tony Thompson (31-2, 19 KOs) last Saturday night in Hamburg, Germany, heavyweight hopeful David Haye told Setanta Sports that he wasn’t at all impressed with Wladimir’s victory, saying “All he does is hold and paw with his jab…every time he’s gotten in there with someone fast, someone with heart, he [Wladimir] has been knocked out. I’m that guy.”

Haye (21-1, 20 KOs) went on to say that he’s disparate to fight Wladimir first, “before someone else knocks him out before me.” Haye was very critical of how Wladimir fought against Thompson, commenting that “if he fought me the same way he fought Thompson, he’d have gotten knocked out in three rounds.”

For the past few months, Haye, 27, has been eagerly pursuing a bout with Wladimir, whom he sees at the number #1 heavyweight in the division at this point. Wladimir, though, hasn’t been equally as interested in giving Haye a fight, instead telling him to fight some people before he starts looking for a title shot. Haye, however, hasn’t given up his interest in landing a fight with Wladimir, and has continued to both criticize and call him out almost on a daily basis in the media.

Unlike most of the fighters that want to fight Wladimir, Haye has a voice in the media given his huge popularity in England and elsewhere in the world. This isn’t something that Wladimir can ignore simply and then have it die down for lack of media attention. Haye has been getting a tremendous amount of attention with his challenges to Wladimir and will continue in the future to get attention.

Wladimir, however, hasn’t shown any signs of weakening, though he doesn’t really have much choice now anyway, because he has a mandatory challenger, Alexander Povetkin, the IBF mandatory challenger that Wladimir must face next. After that, it’s up to him whoever he wants to face, which if Haye is still calling him out, it may likely be him.

Haye hasn’t decided on who his next fight will be at heavyweight, apparently nailing it down to 10 heavyweights. In the past two weeks, there have been reports of him fighting Monte Barrett. However, Haye ruled that out on Saturday night, saying that Barrett wasn’t popular enough, he hadn’t ever beaten any top fighters and that he was a “journeyman” and because of that, a fight with him wouldn’t interest the boxing fans. Haye said that whoever he does face, he’ll be a top 10 contender in the heavyweight division. He doesn’t want to take a lowly guy, like most heavyweights, as he wants to make a name for himself by fighting only the top guys.

In that regard, if he’s at all successful, Haye may quickly find himself as the most fan friendly and popular heavyweight in the division even without a title. However, he’ll be much better off if he can knock off a title, even if it’s WBA heavyweight title, which is currently held by Ruslan Chagaev. I doubt, however, Haye would be interested in pursuing that title, as he seems to want nothing less than the titles held by Wladimir.