By Chris Williams: If you’re like a lot of boxing fans, you’re wondering when David Haye and his aching back will get off the pot and make a decision about whom he will be fighting next. He pulled out of once in a lifetime dream match with IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko a couple of weeks ago and basically tossed away the June 20th title shot.

Wladimir wasn’t about to sit idle for three weeks – or whenever Haye’s back heals up – twiddling his thumbs waiting for Haye to feel good enough to fight again. Wladimir did the wise and logical thing by getting a replacement in Ruslan Chagaev, who will probably turn out to be a much better opponent that Haye would ever be.

But now that the Haye-Wladimir fight is done and buried, when will Haye reveal who his next opponent will be? You’d like to think that Haye will be letting the fans know soon if he was anyone in mind, because Haye hasn’t seen action in the ring since beating journeyman Monte Barrett seven long months ago in November 2008.

Haye probably can’t afford to sit idle for an entire year waiting on one of the Klitschko brothers to come available. This is why I’m wondering whether Haye will make an announcement that about his next opponent soon.

Vitali Klitschko has been mentioned as an opponent, but big Vitali still has his plate full with his WBC mandatory challenger Oleg Maskaev, who he will probably be forced to fight next by the WBC or else risk being stripped.

Haye needs to move forward and look at an alternative to the Klitschko brothers. Haye may not want to fight one of the top contenders but he really needs to do the right thing and stay busy by choosing someone good.

When I say “good” I’m referring to at least the level of someone like Kevin Johnson, Chris Arreola or Alexander Dimitrenko. Haye won’t serve himself well if he chooses another journeyman to fight because, for one it won’t help him prepare for the Klitschko brothers, and two it will fly in the face of all Haye’s talk about wanting to fight only the best.

If he truly wants to fight only the best fighters, then why did Haye fight a journeyman last time out? I’m not going to be an enabler for the guy by sitting quietly and saying nothing when he fights easy opponents. I’m going to call him on the low level opponents that he’s facing and ask why he’s fighting soft guys if he’s supposed to be the new era for the heavyweight division.

So far, I’ve seen nothing new from Haye other than his talk, and even that has been done before by Muhammad Ali. But in the case of Ali, he went after the best early in his career before he became the heavyweight champion. I haven’t seen that with Haye.

Hopefully, Haye shows some backbone and doesn’t decide to sit around for a year waiting on a fight with one of the Klitschko brothers. He needs to show whether he has the ability required to be a good heavyweight by beating one of the top heavyweights in the division while he waits on the Klitschko brothers to get freed up from their commitments.