By Chris Williams: Former cruiserweight champion David Haye (22-1, 21 KOs) is sounding less and less confident as his June 20th fight against IBF/WBO heavyweight champion inches closer and closer to D-day at the Veltins Arena, in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. Haye, 28, pointed out in an interview with Setanta Sports that he will need to fight “twice as good” as he’s fought before if he wants to beat Wladimir. Haye states the obvious, saying “I can’t afford to stand on the outside of his punches getting jabbed in the face like a lot of his opponents do.”

So I’ve got to fight a little bit more like Mike Tyson in this fight.” This sounds all well and good, but Haye has never had a style even remotely close to that of the powerful 5’11” Tyson. I suppose Haye can take a crash course in learning how to move his head, stay low and use a lot of quick torso movement to try and get close to Wladimir, but it’s doubtful that Haye will have learned enough to use against Haye by the time they fight on June 20th.

Most likely, Haye will end up learning enough to get knocked out with like Ricky Hatton in his failed attempt to beat Manny Pacquiao on May 2nd. For Haye to make major changes to his style of fighting it would likely take a considerable amount of time and several fights against quality opposition before Haye could use it well enough to be competitive against Wladimir.

However, Haye is correct when he says that he can’t afford to stay on the outside against Wladimir and expect to win. Indeed, if Haye is stuck on the outside against the big 6’7” Ukrainian then Haye will be forced to take a lot of powerful jabs, right hands and left hooks.

With Haye’s lack of experience against heavy punchers it’s doubtful that he’ll last long against Wladimir under those circumstances. That said, it will take a good chin for Haye to get near enough to Wladimir to land his big shots.

Haye is smaller than Wladimir’s last opponent Hasim Rahman in size and four inches shorter in reach, and Hasim looked tiny compared to Wladimir.

That is going to be something that Haye is going to have to try to overcome because he can’t wait around and look for an opening against Wladimir, because each minute that goes by in the fight Haye will be absorbing withering punishment.

Under an ideal situation, Haye will try to knife through Wladimir’s jabs in the 1st round and give it all he can to try and knock Wladimir out before the Ukrainian gets warmed up and starts unloading on him with left hooks and right hands. I can’t see that happening though.

The way that Haye is sounding in his recent interview it’s as if he’s having second thoughts about whether he can beat Wladimir or not, probably finally understanding what he’s gotten himself into by taking on Wladimir without any relevant experience.

Haye acknowledges that he won’t have the advantage in size in this fight like he’s had while fighting as a cruiserweight, but feels that his better ring intelligence will be the telling factor in the fight. That could be, because Wladimir does have a history of breaking down mentally in tune-up fights that he was supposed to win.

However, Wladimir seems to have improved a lot since losing to Ross Puritty, Corrie Sanders and Lamon Brewster and it’s hard to see any of them having much of a chance against Wladimir the ways he’s fighting now.