By Dave Lahr: British heavyweight David Haye continued his never ending attacks on IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko today in their press conference in New York, calling Wladimir a “B-level champion” and saying that no one will remember Wladimir 20 years from now except for being the opponent who was knocked out by Haye. As in the two other prior press conferences, Wladimir was once again angered by Haye’s comments, saying “I will make you eat your words and your T-shirt as well…I’ll make you a great loser.”
Haye, 28, has had the upper hand on Wladimir in the two other press conferences and easily continued his verbal mastery of the Ukrainian by gleefully ripping into Wladimir with insults about his competition as a heavyweight champion, which Haye feels have been “B-level” and lacked the motivation to beat him. Haye brought up two painful losses for Wladimir, his knockout defeats at the hands of Corrie Sanders and Lamon Brewster, pointing out that Wladimir has been selective in picking his opponents to avoid being knocked out again.
Wladimir, 33, admitted openly that Haye has gotten to him with his comments, but says that he will be more motivated now to beat Haye. Unlike in the other press conferences where Wladimir looked upset and slightly embarrassed, he looked angered and focused to carrying out his threat of beating Haye. The contract between the angry Wladimir and smiling Haye seemed to be startling, as David looked like he was taking pleasure in all of it whereas Wladimir seemed fed up and ready for war.
Wladimir and Haye will be fighting on June 20th at the Veltins Arena, in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. This will be Klitschko’s 6th defense of his IBF heavyweight title and his 3rd for his WBO title. Since capturing the International Boxing Federation crown in 2006, Wladimir has been without a big named opponent and has had an easy time in defeating over-matched challengers like Calvin Brock, Ray Austin, Lamon Brewster, Tony Thompson and Hasim Rahman.
In February 2008, Wladimir defeated Sultan Ibragimov by an uninspiring 12-round unanimous decision to capture the WBO title. The win, a fight in which Wladimir mainly stood on the outside pecking away with his long jab, showed one of the reasons why Wladimir has failed to win many fans in the United States. Although he was much more powerful and had many more offensive tools than Ibragimov, Wladimir chose to fight him defensively almost as if Ibragimov was a knockout threat rather than the weak puncher that he actually is.
For his part, Haye has only limited experience at heavyweight, beating Tomasz Bonin and Monte Barrett. Despite having fought essentially no one at heavyweight, Haye was able to land the fight with Wladimir by challenging Wladimir continuously in the media.
What made Haye so successful in getting the fight was his huge popularity in England, and unlike other heavyweights that challenge Wladimir who don’t have nearly the same support in the media, Haye was able to keep daily pressure on Wladimir by giving a lot of interviews and not letting the pressure off him.
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