By Chris Williams: For David Haye, his back injury was the worst thing that could ever happened to him, because the injury not only wipes out the fight with International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Organization heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, which had been scheduled for June 20th, it creates a situation where Haye will likely have to get back in line and fight some of the top contenders in the heavyweight division.
This is something that Haye didn’t have to do to get a fight with Klitschko this time around. All he had to do is hound Wladimir for about year, constantly giving interviews to various media organizations and not letting up until Wladimir decided to shut Haye up once and for all and fight him.
Unfortunately for Wladimir, giving Haye the fight didn’t shut him up at all and actually made it even worse for the Ukrainian, since Haye began to bombard Wladimir even more once the negotiations where complete and the two fighters traveled around the World holding press conferences to promote the fight.
Haye said a lot of hurtful things that angered Wladimir, calling him “Bitchko” and wearing a t-shirt depicting the severed heads of Wladimir and his brother Vitali. Now, that Haye has injured himself and has had to pull out of the fight, it’s Wladimir who’s getting the last laugh.
Not only did Wladimir refuse to wait around until July 11th or July 25 to fight Haye, Wladimir chose heavyweight Ruslan Chagaev to step in and take the fight instead of Haye for the 20th of June. To be sure, Haye will get a shot at Wladimir at some point in the future, but only after Wladimir gets done with both Chagaev and his IBF number #1 mandatory challenger Alexander Povetkin, who’s been waiting around for close to a year for a title shot against Wladimir.
Those two fights will take up the rest of 2009, meaning that Haye will have to cool his heals until at least early in 2010 to get a title shot. If Wladimir decides to fight his WBO mandatory challenger next, which will be the winner of Alexander Dimitrenko vs. Eddie Chambers, then Haye could find himself waiting until mid 2010 for a fight with Klitschko.
Haye would have to fight someone during that time and if he chooses more journeyman to fight like Monte Barrett, Haye surely will take a lot of heat for it. Boxing fans will be expecting Haye to fight a good opponent after all the boasting that he’s made about himself being the “new generation” of heavyweight.
If the new generation of heavyweight is one that only looks to fight journeyman opponents while talking his way into title fights against heavyweights like Wladimir who worked his way to the top by beating top contenders, it would make Haye look more than a little bad.
I suspect that Haye might retreat to the local British boxing arena to fight someone over there like Danny Williams while Haye waits for time to go by for him to get his big money shot against Klitschko. It’ll look bad, of course, given all of Haye’s prior boasts, but at least he won’t be risking his title shot against quality heavyweight contenders that would have a chance of beating him.
Comments are closed.