By Chris Williams: By the time that British heavyweight David Haye (22-1, 21 KO’s) enters the ring against World Boxing Association heavyweight champion Nikolay Valuev (50-1, 34 KO’s) on November 7th, for their fight in Germany, Haye will have been out of action for an entire year. In some ways, you can say it’s been a lot longer than that, because Haye has been matched pretty softly for the past two years.

It’s been roughly a little over two years since Haye has been in with a real quality opponents in Jean Marc Mormeck. Haye has to climb off the deck after being dropped by Mormeck but was somehow able to come back and stop the short 5’11” Mormeck in the 7th round to capture his WBA and WBC cruiserweight titles.

It was probably Haye’s best win of his entire career, even though it came against the 35-year-old Mormeck, who appeared to be a little past his prime. Haye has taken it easy since that time, facing a weak chinned Enzo Maccarinelli and a 38-year-old Monte Barrett. Maccarinelli, the WBO cruiserweight champion at the time, was stopped in the 2nd round by Haye.

However, the win has lost a lot of the gleam that it had then because Maccarinelli has since been stopped twice by other cruiserweight fighters, most recently by Russian Denis Lebedev. It’s certainly better to fight a soft-chinned fighter or an old journeyman like Barrett rather than nothing at all, but I exactly lump either of those fighters in the category of top level fighter.

Barrett may have been put in the top 15 for his fight with Haye, but I don’t think Barrett belonged anywhere near the top 15 then or before. Perhaps a better ranking for Barrett at the time that Haye fought him would be the top 40 or 50, because he looked past his prime by a number of years by the time that Haye selected him to fight.

That fight wasn’t what Haye needed in terms of keeping him sharp and I think it, along with the Maccarinelli fights, were bouts that did little for Haye other than to give him a knockout on his record. So by the time that Haye fights Valuev on November 7th, it will really be closer to two years since Haye had a quality fight.

I don’t care what anyone says, that’s a long time for a fighter to be out of things, even a young one like 28-year-old Haye. That’s kind of like a mini-retirement in a way, because fighting the softest of opponents for one year, and then following it by a year off, it’s wasted time in my view.

Haye might have been able to help himself by being a little quicker with his negotiations with the Klitschko brothers, whom he was poised to fight not too long ago. Haye went back and forth with both of them for what seemed like ions and then ended up pulling out of a fight with Wladimir Klitschko (because of a back injury), and then walking away from a contract offered by Vitali.

Whatever the case, the time away from boxing has got to have an effect on Haye’s ability to stay sharp. I think this will be Haye’s ultimate undoing when he faces the giant seven foot Valuev. Haye has never fought anyone close to that size. Indeed, he’s mostly fought shorter fighters in the six foot range. The tallest opponent of Haye’s career has been Maccarinelli, a skinny 6’4” fighter, who oddly enough, doesn’t use his height and reach for some reason.