By Matt Stein: World Boxing Organization and International Boxing Federation heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (52-3, 46 KOs) expressed relief today that his negotiations with British heavyweight David Haye (22-1, 21 KOs), saying to ESPN that he’s “happy the fight is on.” The contract for the fight will be signed tomorrow morning, according to Wladimir’s manager Bernd Boente.
Wladimir, 33, is especially happy, because he took more time off in between fights than he normally does, and that he felt for a time that the fight wouldn’t take place because of Haye.
Wladimir, who has held the IBF title for three years now and defended it successfully six times, believes that the fight won’t go the full 12 rounds with Haye. “I will be pleased to shut his [Haye] big mouth with my big fist.”
Wladimir’s management team has been in negotiations with Haye and his team for the past four months, trying to make this fight possible. After the two sides reached a stalemate in negotiations, an outside mediator from Setanta Sports was brought in to assist and finally they were able to get Haye’s side to come to an agreement.
Wladimir ends up getting a portion of the money from Setanta television, along with the money from German television and HBO in the U.S. In addition, Wladimir get’s two options on Haye should David win, and would then be promoting Haye’s next two fights with the first being against either of the Klitschko brothers. The bad part for Haye is that even if he does beat Wladimir in a rematch, Haye would still have to Vitali or Wladimir for his next defense.
With a contract like that so heavily favored towards the Klitschko brothers, no wonder Haye was so reluctant to sign the contract for a fight with Wladimir. At first glance, the contract seems to give Wladimir a lot of power.
However, when you look at it, Haye doesn’t do bad with the two fight option, because both of those fights will be against a Klitschko and Haye isn’t going to make any better money against another heavyweight that he would get against either Klitschko, it works out for him anyway.
Haye, 28, essentially talked his way into a title fight with Wladimir after pursuing him vigorously in the media for a couple of months, calling him out daily until Wladimir finally tired of all Haye’s talk and agreed to give him a fight. Haye has only fought twice as a heavyweight, beating low quality opposition on both occasions.
However, Haye Briefly held the WBC and WBO cruiserweight titles in 2007 and 2008, beating Jean Marc Mormeck and Enzo Maccarinelli to capture the belts. Unfortunately, Haye didn’t stick around to defend the titles against better cruiserweight challengers like Ola Afolabi, Steve Cunningham and Tomasz Adamek, and appears to have gotten out of the cruiserweight just in time not to have to face them.
Wladimir recently defeated former heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman by a 7th round TKO in December 2008. This fight, like most of Wladimir’s other defenses of his titles, was a boring, safety first type fight and it failed to please many in the boxing public.
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