By Sean McDaniel: Having failed to make it to the starting gate in his first attempt at fighting a Klitschko brother due to a nagging bag injury, former undisputed cruiserweight champion David Haye (22-1, 21 KO’s) is looking to get a second shot by facing World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko (37-2, 36 KO’s) on September 12th.

The fight is expected to be confirmed next week and will likely be taking place in a stadium in Germany. There’s still no word as to whether the fight contracts have been signed at this point, but you can expect that word will leak out as soon as they are.

There are reports in the news that the fight will take place in Frankfurt, Germany. The big question in this fight is whether Haye’s injured back has adequately healed enough for him to take the fight without suffering another injury setback which might cause another cancellation.

Haye was set to fight IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, the younger brother of Vitali, but had to pull out of their June 20th bout because of a sudden back problem. If a second injury occurs while training for Vitali, it might mess things up for Haye because Vitali, 37, is too old to be waiting around for Haye’s nagging injuries to heal.

Haye was at one time considered to be the best fighter in the cruiserweight division. He moved up in weight late last year in November and defeated 38-year-old journeyman Monte Barrett by a 5th round stoppage. Despite the lack of quality opposition on his resume, Haye was able to talk his way into a fight with Wladimir and then through Haye’s promotional efforts, he helped sell the fight which drew in over 60,000 boxing fans for the fight that was to have taken place in Gelsenkirchen, Germany.

Instead, Ruslan Chagaev replaced Wladimir for the June 20th fight. It’s unknown whether Haye-Vitali will be able to sell as many tickets as the Haye-Wladimir bout. One problem that could prevent this from happening is that Haye’s injury and trash talk, without backing it up, seems to have turned off a lot of boxing fans towards the fight. In looking around at the various internet boxing forums in the past month, there isn’t too many positive things being said about Haye.

Additionally, the fight against Vitali hasn’t gotten nearly as much attention as the Wladimir-Haye fight was getting. Part of the problem, besides Haye’s injury, might be that few people see a Haye-Vitali fight as being a competitive one due to Haye’s weak chin, lack of experience and the size disparity between him and Vitali.

On paper, this fight looks like a huge mismatch along the same lines as Vitali’s crushing 2nd round knockout over Herbie Hide, another small heavyweight like Haye with a lot of power and speed. Hide never stood a chance and was knocked cold by a big right hand from Vitali.

Haye might stand a better chance against Vitali because of his advanced age. Vitali will be turning 38 on Sunday, but the problem is Vitali is fighting at close to the same ability as he did five years ago before he retired after a string of injuries.