By Eric Thomas: World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko is reportedly interested in meeting former cruiserweight champion David Haye in September, according to the BBC. And Haye, 28, is also interested in making the fight happen. This time hopefully, Haye’s back won’t break down on him to prevent the fight from taking place. It would be a good idea for Haye to try and fight through the pain should he experience another issue with his back, because he might not continue to get chances if he has reoccurring cancellations.
Haye was supposed to fight Wladimir Klitschko, the IBF/WBO heavyweight champion, this Saturday at the Veltins Arena, in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, but Haye suddenly came up with a back injury. One of his sparring partners was surprised about the injury, because he said that Haye had looked fine the last time he had seen him earlier in the day and he had no problems at the time.
Haye asked Wladimir to let him delay the fight until July 11th, but Wladimir felt it was safer to go with another fighter in case Haye still couldn’t make it at that time. This left Haye in a bad situation to say the least.
Instead of getting a big money fight against Wladimir, Haye was now looking at having to fight one of the top contenders in the heavyweight division while David waited for Wladimir to get free of his fights against Chagaev and his next fight later on in 2009 against Alexander Povetkin.
Haye would have to beat a top contender and that might not be so easy, because Haye hasn’t really proven that he belongs in the heavyweight division. There’s a few heavyweights that Haye could probably beat in the top 10, but there’s more than a few that would likely knock him out.
So Haye would have to be very careful to select an especially soft opponent otherwise his chance of getting a shot at Wladimir or Vitali would be down the drain. However, if Vitali can get out of defending his title against Oleg Maskaev in September, then Haye will find himself in a really good place. Vitali has to hope that the WBC will let him skip Maskaev for now and let him take the Haye fight. It doesn’t look that way of now, because the WBC wants Vitali to defend against Maskaev.
Haye is very popular right now and perhaps even more so than either of the Klitschko brothers because of his exciting style of fighting and his big power. But for all that, Haye is undersized at 215, and doesn’t appear to have the kind of frame that will allow him to put on anymore weight without becoming slow and muscle-bound.
Beating a fighter like the 6’8” 250 pound Vitali would be very difficult for Haye. His power will probably have no effect on Vitali, and really that’s Haye’s only chance at winning. His reach is too limited as is his boxing skills, and it will be virtually impossible for Haye to win by a decision.
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