By Scott Gilfoid: According to Dan Rafael from ESPN, the manager Adam Booth and his promoter for heavyweight contender David Haye (21-1, 20 KOs) are speaking with heavyweight contenders Eddie Chambers and Monte Barrett as potential opponents for Haye’s next fight on November 15th at the O2 arena in London. Haye, 27, recently was close to signing on 6’5″ American J.D. Chapman for the fight, but he backed out. Booth will have the final say so over who gets the pick – Barrett or Chambers – but both are fine fighters and Haye couldn’t go wrong by choosing either of them.

Chambers, 26, is ranked a little higher than Barrett at #8 in the IBF, and has excellent boxing skills and good power to go along with it. He’s probably the more dangerous of the two, although the 37 year-old Barrett just recently showed that he has respectable power of his own with a 1st round TKO over 6’9″ Tye Fields in June. Barrett, 37, is ranked #9 in the WBO, and has much more experience against top level opposition than Chambers. However, Barrett has also lost three out of his last six fights, albeit against mostly good competition in Nikolay Valuev, Hasim Rahman and Cliff Couser.

Barrett is a little taller than Chambers by two inches at 6’3″, and tends to sit down more on his shots than the speedy Chambers generally does. If I were to guess which fighter that Haye’s manager will eventually accept a fight with, I would have to guess it would be Barrett.

Chambers is maybe a little too good for a fighter like Haye, who has no real experience against quality heavyweights like either Barrett or Chambers. In a lot of ways, Chambers is like a faster, younger, more powerful version of former two-time heavyweight champion Chris Byrd. This is why I seriously doubt that Haye’s trainer would want to risk putting him in with a young heavyweight with some much talent and life left in him. After all, Chambers recent gave Alexander Povetkin all he could handle in the IBF tournament to determine who the mandatory for IBF heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko would be.

Chambers fought well in the first half of the fight but seemed to tire in the second half, allowing Povetkin to take over the fight. If not for that, who knows? Chambers might very well be the one facing IBF champion Klitschko rather than Povetkin. If Haye is intent on gaining the respect of the boxing public, he could do no wrong by selecting Chambers, because he’s well thought of and has enough name recognition to bring excitement to a heavyweight bout with Haye.

In the case of Barrett, it would be a little less so given his age and his three losses in his last six fights. Still, even if Barrett winds up the choice, he’s a much better opponent than Chapman as far as I’m concerned. He’s been there, fought the best and held up well despite losing more often than not against quality fighters. Both Chambers and Barrett have good chins, so Haye better have a plan B just in case he’s unable to knock them out early.