By Scott Gilfoid: After aggressively pursuing both Klitschko brothers for months, David Haye has gotten his wish, landing what looks to be a fight against the bigger and better of the two brothers, Vitali Klitschko. While I respect Haye a lot for having the courage to take on Vitali rather than the soft-chinned Wladimir, I think Haye is going to be destroyed by Vitali in quick fashion.
At 6’3″, more like 6’2″, 215 pounds, Haye will be giving up six inches in height and roughly 35 pounds in weight. To be sure, he hits probably as hard as Vitali, but his chin is much less sturdy than him. In fact, Haye possibly has a worse chin than Wladimir, because, after all, Haye had problems absorbing big shots while a cruiserweight, and hasn’t been really tested yet as a heavyweight.
Well, he was partially tested by his last opponent, the weak-punching Monte Barrett, who dropped Haye in the 5th with a nice left hand. The referee failed to count it, though, but it was clear that Haye was hurt by the amount of time it took for him to get up off the deck and continue fighting.
Against Vitali, Haye would have to suddenly grow a chin if he was to have any chance at beating the tall Ukrainian fighter. I don’t expect Haye to have any chance in the fight unless he can somehow use a lot of movement and try to confound Vitali much in the same way that Chris Byrd did eight years ago in stopping him in the 9th round.
Haye, however, isn’t nearly as elusive as Byrd and will have to rely on trying to out-slug Vitali and hope for the best. It may turn out to be carbon copy of Vitali’s fight with 1999 2nd round TKO of Herbie Hide, another fast, smallish heavyweight with a glass jaw like Haye.
Hide made Vitali look bad for exactly one round, hitting him with fast shots in the first round, but in the 2nd round, Vitali caught up to Hide and dropped him with a chopping right hand that had Hide down on the canvas for a considerable amount of time while both his legs and arms went through spasms from the knockout.
Haye might even go earlier than that, because unlike Hide, he’ll be trying to go right at Vitali from the opening round. Maybe if Haye had a good chin like Samuel Peter, he could last as long as his skin would hold out, but unfortunately he has a china chin and won’t be able to take nearly the same kind of punishment that Peter took.
For this fight to take place, there’s going to have to be some kind of agreement made with Vitali’s WBC mandatory challenger Juan Carlos Gomez, who earned the fight to face Vitali. Perhaps Gomez might be agreeable with some step aside money with promise that he’ll be able to fight the winner of the bout. Whether it be Haye or Vitali who emerges at the winner, either way Gomez is in an enviable position right now.
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