By Matt Stein: There’s been a lot of flack lately about David Haye pulling out of the fight with Wladimir Klitschko, and more than a few people aren’t too happy with Klitschko’s replacement of Ruslan Chagaev as the substitute for Haye. There’s some people who feel that Chagaev will bring much less excitement because of his more conservative manner of fighting.
Indeed, Chagaev isn’t a big risk taker like Haye is but in the end, I think Chagaev might turn out to be the better choice for Wladimir in terms of being able to take Wladimir’s big shots.
Haye is a good fighter, but he gives me the impression that he would crumble under the first heavy shot that Wladimir lands on the chin. With Chagaev, I don’t get that feeling. He’s never been hurt or dropped in a fight before and has been known for having a great chin even while fighting as amateur.
If I was to have to pick which is the better fighter, Chagaev or Haye, I would perhaps have to choose Chagaev because of his experience, chin and calmness under fire. Haye hasn’t really been tested as of yet because he’s spent the entirety of his career in the cruiserweight division, which is kind of like the bush leagues compared to the heavyweight division.
The cruiserweight division is noted for having much less talented fighters and it’s often populated by heavyweights that couldn’t cut the mustard so to speak. A lot of the time a heavyweight will move down to the cruiserweight division after trying to make a go of it in the heavyweight division.
In Haye’s case, he’s doing to the opposite. He had some success at cruiserweight, but now wants to give it a shot at heavyweight to see if he can compete against the bigger fighters for larger purses. Haye is coasting right now on his past accomplishments and has yet to prove himself as being capable of beating a quality heavyweight.
It may turn out that Haye doesn’t have what it takes as soon as he’s forced to fight a good heavyweight. While I think Haye would probably lose badly in a head to head matchup with Chagaev, I think Haye has a chance to beat Wladimir Klitschko if he can connect with a big shot.
But against Chagaev, Haye’s punches will probably have no effect on him and he’d be forced to try and beat Chagaev by a decision. Given that Haye’s boxing ability is rather limited, I find it hard to believe that Haye could beat Chagaev by a decision.
As such, I see Chagaev as being the better heavyweight. But the weird thing is, Chagaev would have much less of a chance to beat Wladimir compared to Haye because of Chagaev’s lack of hand speed and power. He won’t be able to hit Wladimir enough to hurt him and doesn’t have the size or speed to get near enough to land something that Wladimir doesn’t see coming.
Taking Wladimir out the equation, I still feel that Chagaev is a better heavyweight than Haye, because I can’t see Haye beating heavyweights like Chris Arreola, Samuel Peter, Eddie Chambers, Vitali Klitschko, Denis Bakhtov, Alexander Povetkin and Alexander Dimitrenko.
I think Chagaev is good enough to beat at least a few of these heavyweights, possibly Bakhtov, Dimitrenko, Peter and Chambers. With Haye, I think he would be knocked out by all of them.
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