By Eric Thomas: According to Klitschko.com, the potential fight between IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko and his number #2 WBO challenger David Haye, which was planned to take place on June 20th, has been set aside by Wladimir Klitschko, due in part because of Haye’s “lack of professionalism.” Apparently, Haye has been making confusing demands, so many that’s it’s become an unworkable situation.
The problems between the two fighters are many, stemming from Haye being too greedy by asking for a lot of money according to Wladimir’s manager Bernd Boente, other issues with rights of the British TV, and the changing of the location of the fight by Haye and his manager Adam Booth (the fight had been planned to be taking place at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge ground in England).
Wladimir had been looking forward to having the fight take place at that location, and when it was taken off the table by Haye and his manager, it caused the negotiations to stall. Now that Wladimir has temporarily frozen the negotiations with Haye, Wlad will be looking at other options for a replacement opponent, looking at Chris Arreola, the number #2 ranked heavyweight in the IBF and #3 in the WBO, or possibly another opponent.
Wladimir, 32, seems to have underestimated the difficulty in setting up a fight with Haye, who is arguably the biggest name in heavyweights in Britain, and who also has his own promotional outfit, “Hayemaker Promotions,” which is run by Haye and his manager Adam Booth.
Wladimir seems to have not factored in the difficulty in trying to arrange a deal with a fighter that is self promoted, and at the same time possibly the 2nd most popular boxer in England after Ricky Hatton. Wladimir and his brother Vitali head their own promotional company “K2 Promotions.”
Given the two separate promotional companies involving fighters that help run the company, it’s no wonder that they ran into problems with negations. This should have been expected going into trying to set up the fight. Whether Wladimir opts to resume talks with Haye remains to be seen, but in the meantime, you can expect that Wladimir will be looking at setting up a fight with someone else.
As of now, Arreola looks to be the best candidate for the job. At 6’4” 250, Arreola, (26-0, 23 KOs), is easily probably the best of the American heavyweights. With a lot of size, a big right hand and a crowd pleasing aggressive style of fighting, he may turn out to give Wladimir a much better match than Haye would have with his weak chin.
Arreola, 27, has proven himself somewhat as a heavyweight contender, beating Chazz Witherspoon, Cliff Couser and Travis Walker. Whereas with Haye, he’s beaten only Monte Barrett and looked bad in doing so after getting shaken up a couple of times by hard right hands from Monte.
Arreola has an open date on his schedule on April 11th, at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. After that, however, he’s free to take on Wladimir if he’s chosen by the Ukrainian.
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