By Chris Williams: Heavyweight David Haye (22-1, 21 KOs) has once again claimed that he’ll be soon hanging up the boxing gloves, saying to News of the World that he plans on fighting four times – including two fights against the Klitschko brothers that Haye is confident that he’ll win – and then Haye will be retiring by the age of thirty.
Haye, 28, will be challenging IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (52-3, 46 KOs) on June 20th at the Veltins Arena, in Gelsenkirchin, Germany. Haye figures to beat both Wladimir and his brother WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko and then retire after defending the IBF/WBC/WBO titles twice, getting out of the sport by the time Haye turns 30.
Haye didn’t say what he would do if he’s knocked out by Wladimir on June 20th. That would have been interesting to hear what Haye would say to that situation. If Wladimir knocks Haye out badly enough, I imagine that Haye might move his retirement ahead two years and save himself a lot of wasted time and wear and tear on his body by having to stay on longer.
Haye seems to think that retiring at an early age will make him look even more special, and will add to his legacy. I kind of doubt it happening like that. I hate to break this to Haye, but if he retires after four more fights, and loses most of them, he won’t be thought of as great.
He might be thought of as a journeyman or a fighter that should have never left the cruiserweight division, but he won’t be thought of as great. If I was to play along with Haye’s warped vision and see him beating both of the Klitschko brothers, then I still doubt that Haye will be considered great unless he continues to take on real threats to him after that point.
The problem is Haye hasn’t fought anyone now, so it’s hard to see him doing anything great in the future. Haye had a chance to fight a quality heavyweight in his last bout, but chose instead to take a safe fight by selecting the weak-punching Monte Barrett to fight.
Haye says that by the time he’s 30 it will mean that he’d have been fighting for 20 years in the sport and he doesn’t want to fight anymore beyond that. I don’t know why, because Haye has had it easy fighting in the cruiserweight division where the competition is about the weakest there is in boxing.
The division has improved a lot since Haye left it, but when he was fighting there were few talented fighters in the division at that time. Haye still ended up getting knocked out by a 40-year-old Carl Thompson, one of the few halfway decent fighters in the division at that time.
Haye doesn’t want to stay on past 30 like Oscar De La Hoya and Bernard Hopkins. It’s strange that Haye would use both of them as examples, because Hopkins and De La Hoya had a lot of success past 30, making much more money than they did earlier in their career prior to that.
It’s doubtful that Haye will find the same kind of success as Hopkins and De La Hoya, because they were both special kinds of fighters and neither of them had to fight the Klitschko brothers. Haye might be able to find some success even if he is knocked out by Wladimir, but it will likely require for Haye to fight beyond 30 to make it happen.
Losing to Wladimir will hurt Haye’s career and he’ll need to fight at least four to five more times against good competition just to make the boxing fans forget his probable knockout loss to Klitschko. I doubt Haye will want to even try, and will likely quickly retire after he’s beaten by Wladimir on June 20th.
The good news for Haye is that he’ll be getting out of the sport even earlier than his 30th birthday, and thus can get out of the sport with an impressive record of 22-2.
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