By Chris Williams: World Boxing Council super middleweight champion Carl Froch (25-0, 20 KO’s) not only thinks that former cruiserweight champion David Haye can beat IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, but he also incredibly believes that Haye can beat WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko as well, according to the The Sun. Froch, however, at least is open-minded enough to say that Vitali would be the “tougher, harder fight” for the 28-year-old Haye.
Clearly, Froch is sticking up for his fellow Brit in backing Haye, but Froch seems to have gone a little overboard with enthusiasm for Haye’s abilities, because the last time I checked, Haye hadn’t beat any quality heavyweights and had only done a lot of talking. It’s not like Haye didn’t have a chance to fight a top notch fighter in his last fight, but instead went the soft route with a fight against 38-year-old Monte Barrett.
Haye’s choice of opponent is kind of telling, isn’t it? Whatever. Froch seems to be under the impression that Haye will get a surge of confidence once he beats Wladimir, and then can use this confidence to fight at a higher level and beat Vitali.
That sounds really good. Except that there’s one big problem with that. Haye is looking to fight Vitali next, not Wladimir, so it will be a little hard for Haye to get the confidence that Froch is speaking about if he’s facing the perceived tougher of the tough brothers next.
What will likely happen is that Vitali will go out, hit Haye on the head in the first couple of rounds, and then walk out of the arena with a 1st or 2nd round knockout victory over Haye. Yeah, I suppose Haye can then use this defeat to gain confidence so he can then face Wladimir, but somehow I don’t see it working out that way. If Haye gets destroyed in a fight against Vitali, then Wladimir won’t waste his time on fighting Haye, and will make the Brit work his way into a title shot rather than just handing one to him like he did before.
Haye had his chance but couldn’t make it into the ring because his back went out on him before he could fight Wladimir in their scheduled June 27th bout. Depending on how badly Vitali beats up Haye in their next fight, I don’t think that Haye will be in the condition to work his way into a title shot by beating two or three top tier heavyweights.
Even before Vitali destroys Haye, I suspect that Haye would be in way over his head in a fight against heavyweights like Chris Arreola, Odlanier Solis, Alexander Povetkin and Dimitrenko. But a beating from Vitali will make it that much harder for Haye to eventually work his way into a title.
Haye would avoid top heavyweights altogether, I suppose, and just wait around until Wladimir has run out of opponents to fight. However, unless Wladimir opts to fight him in that situation, I can’t see Haye beating a top heavyweight to become Wladimir’s mandatory.
As such, it would be entirely up to Wladimir whether he would want to fight Haye, since David won’t likely work his way into the position to fight him like most heavyweights have to. Normally, a loss to a heavyweight like Vitali would be a huge setback, making it necessary for them to work their way up the latter. With Haye, all he has to do is keep talking down Wladimir and he still might get a shot even if he fights only Monte Barrett every four months for the next year or two.
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