By Simon Hirst: With it increasingly seeming like Wladimir Klitschko will not wait three weeks and instead, choose Ruslan Chagaev as a replacement, a lot of speculation has been made of this decision. Some people argue Haye got cold feet and used a minimal injury as an excuse. Some people don’t understand why Klitschko won’t wait three weeks to fight Haye. Whatever the truth if, it would seem we are left with Vladimir Klitschko vs Ruslan Chagaev and David Haye vs nobody.
First of all, let’s look at Chagaev vs Klitschko. Chagaev is an unbeaten man holding a records of 25-0-1 (17 KO’s) but a closer look at the record and you see there is not much substance on it. You look at his last six fights, he’s wont 3 by UD, 2 by MD and 1 by SD, and these are against people he should be beating comfortably if he is to be world champion. Klitschko, for all the criticism he gets for being boring, knows how to win and I can’t help but think this has the same result as his fight with Ibragimov.
Haye therefore needs to ‘get in line’ as people are saying, so how does he fit in and work his way up? At the moment, he should be ring rusty, having only two fights in 14 months isn’t good for anybody and he needs to start getting fights under his belt. If he’s as good as his word, he should be patient, get a fight under his belt as soon as he can to shake some rust off. I’d then think a 3 fight plan to a world title shot.
His first fight needs to be against a name. Rahman, Thompson, Peter, somebody like that. He needs a fight that will give him a big name under his belt. It will also give him big heavyweight fight experience and if he looks impressive, he should win some fans along in the process. At the moment, he (technically) less than six rounds experience at heavyweight and he going in with arguably the best heavyweight in the world. It’s a brave thing to do, but most would say it’s not necessarily wise.
The second fight he needs to look for is a number one contender fight. The fight will make him mandatory challenger to the title and therefore he won’t be flicked aside as he is now. Of course, this is providing he wins this fight. I couldn’t possibly guess who this will be against, but it’ll either be against an experienced veteran or someone as hungry as Haye.
Providing he wins these two fights, he should be in line to fight whoever the world champion is at the time, which will likely to be Klitschko in all truth. I think Haye, rather than moan at Klitschko for not waiting three weeks should use it to his advantage. He needs to turn that disappointment into motivation and work his way up, prove a point that he is the crown jewel in the division, he is the exciting stand out fighter and he is the heir to the throne. None of this three-fight contract rubbish he apparently signed. If Haye gets experience under his belt and wins the title, he’ll look back on this as a blessing in disguise.
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