By Dave Lahr: For the past couple of months former cruiserweight champion David Haye (22-1, 21 KOs) has had his way with IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (52-3, 46 KOs), taking advantage of his poor English skills as well his in ability to deal with any kind of minor trash talking. In the last week, Haye has turned it up a notch by bringing Wladimir’s brother into it by wearing a t-shirt of Vitali and Wladimir’s cut off heads in each of Haye’s upraised arms.
Although much better educated than Haye with a PHd from Ukraine, Wladimir seems awkward and ill equipped when he attempts to come back with an insult of his own. My question is will angering Wladimir ultimately help Haye in this fight? From the looks of it, Haye may end up pissing off Wladimir and find himself in for a much tougher fight than he would have had without the abuse.
Haye says that’s what he’s counting on because he wants to force Wladimir to fight him, remarking “I want him to fight like a man, not run like a bitch. Stand and fight me Vladimir Bitchko!” If that’s Haye’s intention, I think he’s going to succeed at making Wladimir want to mix it up from the start of the fight.
However, I think Haye has watched too many of Wladimir’s most recent fights and hasn’t bothered to look at how dangerous a puncher Wladimir was earlier in his career before changing trainers. From 1996 to 2004, Wladimir would generally go out and try to destroy his opponents as fast as possible and would often stop many of them before the 6th.
You could argue that most of them weren’t as good as Haye, but since Haye has almost next to no real experience at heavyweight, you can’t really be sure about that. If Wladimir comes out fast and throwing big leather the way that Haye wants him to, this fight could end much like Wladimir’s 2nd round TKO win over David Bostice in April 2000.
In that fight, an angered Wladimir came out fast to make an example of Bostice in order to show that the Klitschko brothers weren’t cowards. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyqPsC5NJFM – Earlier in the month, Vitali Klitschko had quit on his stool in the 9th round after injuring his left shoulder in a fight with Chris Byrd on April 1st 2000.
Wladimir came out throwing huge shots and ended up mowing Bostice down in short order. This is perhaps the only time that Wladimir has ever been angered before a fight as far as I can tell, and it ended up a quick knockout victory for him.
Haye hasn’t had the type of chin needed to take the kind of heavy shots that Wladimir will be dishing out if the Ukrainian decides to come out throwing in the 1st round. And without the height, reach or defense to defend against Wladimir’s big punches, I’m wondering what will happen to Haye.
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