By Chris Williams: David Haye’s back ailment whether real or not really messed up his chances for a bout with IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, who now is telling Haye to get in line and work his way into a title shot if he wants to fight him.

Haye, however, may still not have to work his way into a title shot like normal fighters, because Vitali Klitschko is looking in Haye’s direction as an opponent for September. Haye, 28, is game for a bout with Vitali, but also still wants a fight with Wladimir as well. Like a kid in the candy store, Haye wants everything without working for it and appears to be counting his chickens before they’ve hatched.

I don’t know, but maybe Wladimir might still be interested in fighting Haye if he gets beaten by Vitali, but I wouldn’t bet on it. In Haye’s rush to fight one of the Klitschko brothers, he’s picked perhaps the hardest one and may have been better off if he skipped over Vitali all together and concentrated on building up his skills.

Wladimir, even if he wanted to, doesn’t have the time available in 2009 to accommodate Haye by giving him another chance for a fight. Haye bailed on Wladimir already choosing to postpone the fight after hurting his back before their scheduled June 20th bout.

Wladimir moved on and fought Ruslan Chagaev instead, and doesn’t have any desire to fight Haye, tell him to “get in line” and pointing out that Povetkin is his mandatory challenger for his IBF title and the winner of the Alexander Dimitrenko vs. Eddie Chambers is the going to be the mandatory for his World Boxing Organization heavyweight title.

Normally, this would mean that Haye would be in a tough position of having to look for a good opponent to fight in the meantime. Haye would obviously have no shortage of opponents, because there are a number of top heavyweights in the top 10 that would love to get Haye in the ring so that he could test his weak chin.

However, it looks like Vitali may be the first one to test him out. That is extremely fortunate for Haye, because losing to someone like Vitali is much preferable than getting knocked cold by heavyweights like Samuel Peter, Kevin Johnson, Chris Arreola, Kali Meehan, Denis Boytsov or Odlanier Solis.

Those are all heavyweights that Haye should be looking to fight if he were concerned with establishing his credibility as a fighter and learning getting more suited to the heavyweight division. Haye needs to try as hard as possible to make the fight with Vitali happen, because having to fight another top heavyweight – and then possibly beaten – would be a huge blow to Haye’s career.

As of now, Haye is still riding on the crest of his cruiserweight accomplishments, which include wins over Enzo Maccarinelli, Jean Marc Mormeck, Giacobbe Fragomeni, Lasse Johansen, Alexander Gurov, Vincenzo Rossitto, Glen Kelly and Arthur Williams. The more time goes by the less these victories mean anything because none of them are relevant to beating a top flight heavyweight.