By Chris Williams: To listen to some fans of WBA heavyweight champion David Haye, it’s only a matter of time before he beats both the Klitschko brothers and gathers up all the heavyweight titles. Haye, 29, came close to capturing all the titles while fighting as cruiserweight. The only title that escaped Haye was the International Boxing Federation (IBF) title. If Haye had stuck around longer, he probably would have won that title too.

However, Haye moved up to the heavyweight division last year with the goal to fight – and beat – the Klitschko brothers. Haye didn’t like the way he was treated last time out while attempting to negotiate a contract with both of the Klitschko brothers. However, now that Haye has the World Boxing Association title in his possession, he’ll likely have no problems getting the contract that he wants in a fight against either of the Klitschko brothers.

Some of Haye’s boxing fans from Britain think he’ll be able to beat both Klitschko brothers in the next year. I don’t know if Haye has it in him to do it. Haye has the power to knock out Wladimir if he can connect with something hard enough to stun him. But if he can’t get close enough to land, Haye’s chances diminish rapidly. He punches much better when he’s close enough to throw.

I noticed that Haye likes to throw big looping shots against his opponents. It works when he’s fighting a shorter fighter, but he was a lot less successful against the towering seven foot Nikolay Valuev last Saturday night. Haye’s hand speed is quite good and that enabled him to land occasional right hands against Valuev. But Haye’s chances of landing against Wladimir and Vitali are much less, because both of them tend to fight on their back foot, especially Vitali.

I don’t even think it matters with Vitali whether he’s leaning backwards or standing flat footed. He’ll be able to take Haye’s shots without going down. And with his strong jab, good movement and powerful left hook and right hand, Vitali would be very dangerous for Haye to fight. Haye might be able to have a better chance if he waits Vitali out for a couple of years, hoping that the 6’7″ Vitali ages and slows down more by then.

However, if Haye chooses to fight Vitali now, Haye won’t have much of shot at beating him. The movement that Haye did against Valuev would be largely ineffective against Vitali or Wladimir. It might save Haye from getting hit as much, but the only thing that would come of that would be time wasted off the clock of each round. I guess you could equate that to running out the clock in each round.

It would be like a basketball team dribbling and passing the ball to each other up until the shot clock if almost done and then shooting desperately. That wouldn’t win the fight against the Klitschko brothers, because they would be throwing a lot of fast and hard jabs at Haye. With their long reach, the Klitschko brothers would be hitting Haye, unlike the slow moving Valuev who had no bend to his body.

Haye would have a chance of knocking Wladimir out if he could summon up the courage to attack him the way that Lamon Brewster, Corrie Sanders and Ross Puritty did in their wins over Wladimir. However, I don’t for a second think that Haye would be able to take the punishment that Brewster and Puritty took against Wladimir without going down for the count early.

Sanders didn’t get hit that much because he stayed on the outside and blitzed Wladimir early in the fight. Haye would have to try something similar or else risk being stopped by a left hook from Wladimir. I doubt that Wladimir will risk throwing a right hand at Haye, because of Haye’s fast hands and good counter punching ability. But the same token goes for Haye. If he leaves himself open with one of his wild haymaker shots, Wladimir will ruin his world if he connects with a left hook.

Overall, I give Haye not much of a chance of beating Wladimir. He can do it, but Haye will have to attack Wladimir early before the Ukrainian gets his offense started. Once Wladimir starts connecting with his jab, the bout will be over soon after. In the case of Vitali, it doesn’t matter what Haye does. He’ll lose badly. I see Haye doing the clock wasting strategy that he did against Valuev by running three minutes of every round. Haye might figure that he can run enough to limit the punch output from Vitali and maybe tire him out some. It will be a desperate strategy, but it’s the only one that Haye has.