Is Haye Risking His Boxing Career Against Wladimir?

By Boxing News - 04/02/2009 - Comments

haye56346600By Chris Williams: It’s amusing to me seeing David Haye risk pretty much his entire boxing career in facing Wladimir Klitschko on June 20th in Germany. Haye seems ready to risk everything in hopes of beating Wladimir and taking Wladimir’s two titles home to England. The costs of losing to Wladimir are extreme, though, so I hope Haye is prepared for that experience.

If Haye loses really bad like I think he will, Haye will be reduced to have to fight it out with the other bottom dwellers in the top 15, and will have to earn his way back into another title shot if he ever wants to fight at that level again. Haye has already given up a lot just to get the fight with Wladimir.

To start with, Haye is going up options for two fights to Wladimir’s K2 East Promotions, and will have to fight twice more for them in the future presumably against either Wladimir or Vitali. Although you can forget about Haye fighting the Klitschko’s again if Wladimir destroys him in one or two rounds. In that case, Haye will have to be content to just fighting against someone, probably a really soft opponent, in the future.

Haye can really help himself if he comes out fast out of the blocks and tries to take Wladimir’s head of with every swing. In that case, even if Haye does end up losing to Wladimir at least he’ll have put on an exciting fight for boxing fans around the world. That said, it doesn’t mean that Haye won’t suffer the after effects in terms of lost fans.

The boxing world doesn’t like losers and I have little doubt that many fans will turn their backs on Haye if he loses to Wladimir and consider him flawed and not worth the trouble. However, like fans of Ricky Hatton, the Haye diehard fans, most of them British, will continue to support Haye no matter how badly he loses to Wladimir.

Though for Haye to make big cash in the future, he needs to be popular not just in the UK, but in places like the U.S. and Canada if Haye wants to get huge money for his fights. He says he wants to retire by the age of 30, which means that win or lose, Haye doesn’t have much more time left in boxing.

The two fight option with K2 East will take a significant chunk out of Haye’s diminishing years left in the sport, and will probably put him smack dab at the age of 29 by the time he’s finished with his two other fights. Frankly, I think Haye was just flapping his gums when he said he’d retire by 30, but if he’s at all serious, he doesn’t have much more time to make big money should he lose to Wladimir.

It might take desperate measures for him to try to drum up another big bout with some other fighter other than the Klitschkos. In that case, Haye might have to go on another public relations maneuver to try and talk his way into another big money world title fight.

The problem here is that besides the Klitschkos, there’s only Nikolay Valuev and Ruslan Chagaev, and neither of them are too popular in the U.S. or in Europe for that matter. When all’s said and done, Haye stands to lose big if Wladimir defeats him on June 20th.



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