By Chris Williams: David Haye accomplished a lot by talking his way into a title fight with IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko which is now set to take place three weeks from now on June 20th, at the Veltins Arena, in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. Haye, 28, is the equivalent of a person that talks their way into a job without the educational or experience needed to do well at the job.
Although many of Haye’s British boxing fans feel that his previous world titles won as a cruiserweight is more than enough to qualify Haye to skip to the front of the line for a title shot against Klitschko, many other fans from other parts of the world disagree and feel that Haye is going to get his backside handed to him on June 20th.
It’s hard to argue with the non-British boxing fans, because they do have a point about Haye’s lack of solid work as a heavyweight going into his fight with Klitschko. Had Haye at least beaten a handful of quality heavyweights like Alexander Povetkin, Chris Arreola or Alexander Dimitrenko, it would be much easier to see him as a legitimate threat to Wladimir in their fight.
However, when the opportunity came for Haye to fight some heavyweights, Haye chose the weaker variety, taking on and beating Tomasz Bonin and Monte Barrett, neither of which did much in raising Haye’s worth in the eyes of non-British fans of the sport.
As such, if Wladimir goes out and immediately destroys Haye on June 20th, there will be the perception in the minds of some boxing fans – perhaps more than you might imagine – that Wladimir didn’t accomplish all that much of a feat due to Haye’s lack of prior experience at the heavyweight level.
This is partly Klitschko’s fault for bending under the pressure that Haye was putting him under in the media by Haye’s constant insults aimed at Wladimir’s ability and worth as a champion. It was a tried and true trick that Haye pulled on Wladimir to get him to get upset enough to give him the fight.
However, one could hardly blame Klitschko for taking the fight because in the three years that Wladimir has held the International Boxing Federation heavyweight strap, he’s been without a defining fight due to the lack of quality opposition in the heavyweight division during these three years.
Even now, there’s hardly all that many talented fighters outside of Wladimir, his brother Vitali Klitschko and perhaps one or two other heavyweights such as Alexander Povetkin and Alexander Dimitrenko. None of them are household names and don’t really interest hardcore boxing fans in the manner that Haye does.
However, Haye’s resume was accomplished at the cruiserweight level which you can pretty much dismiss altogether because of the huge size differences between the average cruiserweight and heavyweights like Wladimir and Vitali.
Without any real experience at heavyweight, Haye is effectively a fighter that is coming into the June 20th fight against Wladimir cold, without the proven record needed to make fans believe he is anything other than a fighter that likes to talk a great deal.
For those fans, it probably hardly matters how badly Wladimir beats Haye. He won’t get much credit for beating him because they feel that Haye had no business fighting for a heavyweight title in the first place given his lack of quality fights going into the bout with Klitschko.
Comments are closed.