photo by Pavel “Eagle eye” Terehov – By Scott Gilfoid: To be brutally honest, it probably doesn’t matter what David Haye does in the ring against Vitali Klitschko, because when it’s all said and done, Haye doesn’t have a big enough cannon to take him out. Clearly, this isn’t a fight that Haye is going to be able to win on his boxing skills alone, because he’s a rather ordinary boxer, who relies mostly on winning his fights by knockout. He’s not particularly adept at throwing jabs, and mainly waits for openings to throw a single big shot, hoping to stun his opponents. If he’s unable to hurt Vitali with a single shot, then he most certainly won’t be throwing any kind of combinations, because Haye generally only throws combinations after hurting his opponent with a big shot.
Without a jab or combinations, Haye will need to pray that Vitali runs out of gas on his own accord, because Haye won’t be having much luck in trying to take him out with one shot at a time. That doesn’t work against Vitali. I do think that Haye might give Vitali trouble with his long sweeping right hands. Haye throws them with a lot of speed, and because of the odd angle that they’re thrown from, Vitali may have trouble seeing and blocking them until it’s too late.
The problem here, though, is that Vitali will probably be able to take them without any problem, and will be firing back with his own big right hand shots. Haye, for his part, may have serious trouble taking Vitali’s power shots for long. I think Haye can stand up to some big shots from Vitali for awhile, but over time, I think Haye will eventually start breaking down.
I don’t expect that Haye will be able to dodge Vitali’s jabs or right hands very effectively, at least not with any consistency. He might make Vitali miss with some of his right hands, but Haye won’t be able to get out of the way of the vast majority of them. At the same time, he’ll likely have trouble with Vitali’s short left hooks to the head. Vitali is quite accurate with these shots and he’s able to load up on them on occasion.
Haye’s speed may be the most important factor him in this bout, because he’ll be much faster than Vitali and will able to land clean shots well before Vitali has time to react to them. In Haye’s fight with Enzo Maccarinelli, another tall Euro fighter who has respectable speed and immense power, Haye was able to hurt him with fast right hand and then put him down with a flurry.
Going into the fight, Maccarinelli was known for having a really good chin, yet against Haye, he was easily hurt and taken out once he came under bombardment. The same may hold true for Vitali, who has never faced a puncher with the speed and power like Haye.
For sure, Corrie Sanders and Lennox Lewis both probably hit as hard, perhaps a little harder than Haye, but neither were nearly as fast as him, which allowed Vitali to see their punches coming. In this case, Vitali won’t see many of Haye’s big shots before they connect, and will have to count on his chin holding up under the strain.
If it does, then Haye doesn’t have a ghost of a chance at winning. Like I said, Haye could never outbox either of the brothers, because he’s too limited, one-dimensional, muscle-bound and accustomed to winning by knockouts. If his body had more flexibility, less muscle on his upper body, then maybe Haye would be able to throw jabs and score on Vitali, but it seems as if he’s not flexible enough to throw jabs and has to rely on power shots instead.
In the end, that probably won’t work against Vitali, and we’ll likely see Haye going down in a round or two. If Monte Barrett was powerful enough to put Haye down for an extended amount of time, then Vitali may end up putting Haye in a coma.
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