Williams: He [David Haye] Could Beat Any Heavyweight Without a Warm-up”

By Boxing News - 07/17/2008 - Comments

By Dan Ambrose: In an interview with Setanta Sports, heavyweight Danny Williams was very complimentary of British heavyweight David Haye, going so far as to say that he has tremendous speed and power. He has absolutely everything. He could beat any heavyweight without a warm-up.” At the same time, Williams also wasn’t impressed with challenger Tony Thompson’s performance against IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, calling it “absolutely sickening” and “disgusting.” Apparently, Williams felt that Thompson didn’t give it his all in the fight, and held back rather than trying to take the fight to Klitschko.

Thompson, 36, did make numerous efforts to engage Wladimir earlier in the fight, but was met with a lot of hard right hands whenever he would come in close. Wladimir made it even tougher for Thompson by clinching him continuously, thus preventing him from getting off more than one or two shots at a time. With as little power as Thompson had, he clearly needed much more than a couple of shots in a row if he intended on beating a fighter as good as Wladimir.

Williams feels that Haye has the talent to rejuvenate the heavyweight division, which has been going through a stale period since the retirement of Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson in the past four years. Wladimir Klitschko and his brother, Vitali, were at first thought to be the saviors of the division. However, Vitali retired in 2005 after suffering a slew of injuries to both his back and knee, and Wladimir, with an often safety first fighting style, has failed to fight excite boxing fans since winning the IBF heavyweight title in 2006 with a knockout over Chris Byrd. Haye, as much hype as he’s getting in the press, is still an unknown fighter. He talks well, seems to be an excellent self promoter, but up to this point he hasn’t beaten away of note to warrant all the press he’s been getting as of late.

While fighting as a cruiserweight, Haye fought mostly smaller, limited fighters like Jean Marc Mormeck, Enzo Maccarinelli and Glen Kelly, and none of them would likely make it more than couple of rounds, if that, with Wladimir Klitschko. So, Haye has done well against the lower quality talent in the cruiserweight division, but that doesn’t really say much at this point. Even then, Haye was beaten by an old Carl Thompson, who merely stayed in their until Haye tired himself out in the 5th round, then took him out with a few lumbering right hands to the head. Thompson’s a good puncher, but anywhere near the same class as Wladimir.

If Haye could prove himself as being able to take a heavy shot without going down, like he did against Thompson and Mormeck, then maybe he might be good enough to someday beat a fighter with the power and size of a Wladimir. But, in the absence of that, I don’t see him being able to beat Wladimir, nor any of the other big heavyweights in the division like Samuel Peter, Nikolay Valuev, Alexander Dimitrenko or Vitali Klitschko.

I think Vitali, even with four years away from boxing, would completely decimate a fighter like Haye. Not only would Vitali be able to take Haye’s shots without any problem, but he’s have something answer back with again and again, and we’d likely see another Danny Williams vs. Vitali Klitschko scenario, in which Haye is knocked down multiple times en route to being stopped.



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