By Scott Gilfoid: Well, the back and forth negotiations between IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko and his British challenger David Haye appear to be back on according to the latest boxing news from the world. However, instead of it taking place in London, where it was previously thought to be taking place, it looks as if it will be taking place in Wladimir’s neck of the woods, in Berlin, Germany on June 20th. Although the negotiations are still underway, they are reportedly 98% completed between Haye and Wladimir.
Haye, 28, a former WBA/WBC/WBO cruiserweight champion, is getting a title shot against Wladimir after having fought only two fights at heavyweight, beating Tomasz Bonin and Monte Barrett. Despite relative inexperience at heavyweight, Haye was vaulted over many other top heavyweights and given the prime number #2 spot in the WBO rankings, #4 in the WBC, #6 in the WBA and #11 in the IBF, based mainly on his previous credentials as a cruiserweight champion.
With so little experience in the heavyweight division against good competition, and coupled with a bad history of having a weak chin, it’s hard to predict how well Haye will do against a heavyweight as large, powerful and as athletic as Wladimir Klitschko. On paper, it would seem likely that Haye will be knocked out in a few rounds due to his lack of chin, size and experience.
But who knows? Wladimir has chin problems of his own and sometimes does poorly against big punchers. However, in two of his three losses to big punchers, he gave them a terrible beating before he ran out of gas and was taken out. Haye has never been one to be able to take serious punishment, mostly because of the far inferior competition that he’s faced as a cruiserweight.
Indeed, most of the opponents that Haye has fought would probably classify as C-level heavyweights, if that, and aren’t the type of fighters that would seem worthy to have even fought in the first place. Haye’s entire record seems to rest on a handful of fights against good – not great – cruiserweights like Alexander Gurov, Giacobbe Fragomeni, Jean Marc Mormeck and Enzo Maccarinelli.
Unfortunately, none of them would likely go more than a handful of rounds before being knocked out by Wladimir. More than that, most of them are far too small to even lay glove on Wladimir and it would boil down to a pure slaughter if Wladimir were to fight any of them. Haye was lucky to escape from the cruiserweight division before having to face the current batch of cruiserweights like Tomasz Adamek, Steve Cunningham and O’Neil Bell – all of whom would have a better than average chance of beating Haye.
Moving up against a fighter like Wladimir, who at 6’7”, would have literally toyed with every fighter that Haye has faced in his career, would suggest to me that Haye is going to be blown out of the water in a couple of rounds by Wladimir.
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