By Scott Gilfoid: In recent days, there has been a lot of talk about the big money that World Boxing Association heavyweight champion David Haye will make in a fight against one of the Klitschko brothers late in 2010. Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer has even gone so far as to say that the fight would make 120 million. Personally, I think that’s a ridiculous figure and I find it hard to keep from laughing when I read that. I have no doubts that the fight would make decent money, but not anywhere near what Schaefer thinks it will be.

But I think Haye, and many other people, are really looking past former heavyweight champion John Ruiz and assuming that Haye will beat him without too many problems. I’m not sure they watched the same fight that I did last Saturday night with the Nikolay Valuev vs. Haye bout in Nuremberg, Germany.

Haye barely won the fight, beating Valuev by a 12 round majority decision and averaging around 10 punches thrown per round. I’m not talking about 10 actual connects per round, I’m referring to 10 punches thrown per round. Haye’s work rate was abysmal for a heavyweight his size. Haye weighed only 218, which is small for a heavyweight, yet he was unable to throw enough punches to win many of the rounds.

I personally had Haye losing the fight by a round due to his constant running and his lack of punches thrown in the fight. It wasn’t that Haye couldn’t physically throw punches, it was more a case of him looking deathly afraid of getting hit by one of Valuev’s clubbing punches. What I don’t like about that is that Valuev isn’t a big puncher and I can’t understand how or why Haye couldn’t throw more shots in the fight.

Haye’s defenders point out that Haye hurt his right hand early in the fight and that’s why he didn’t throw a lot of punches. However, I took a second look at Haye’s fight against Monte Barrett last year in November and noticed that Haye didn’t throw a lot of punches in that fight either. Nor did Haye throw a lot of punches in his fight with Enzo Maccarinelli in 2008.

What I seem to be seeing here is a fighter that likes to load up and pot shot, but who deathly hates to get hit in return by his opponents. Because of that, Haye stays on the outside and moves around a lot to prevent from getting hit. In a way, Haye reminds me of a poor man’s version of Chris Byrd. I say poor because Byrd was willing to mix it up, stay in close and make his opponents miss.

Although he would certainly use movement, he never moved anywhere close to the amount that Haye showed in his fight with Valuev last Saturday night. Even against big punchers like Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko, Byrd was willing to stay in the pocket and trade with them.

Somehow, I see Haye running laps around the ring when and if he fights the Klitschko brothers. The running that we saw against Valuev will likely pale in comparison to the running that Haye will do against Wladimir or Vitali Klitschko. His whole thing will be to try and pot shot his way to victory, hoping to impress the judges by landing a small – really small – amount of shots each round. It won’t work.

However, I have my doubts that Haye will ever get a shot at the Klitschko brothers, because I see him losing to Ruiz next year. Haye won’t be able to beat Ruiz by pot shotting him 10 shots per rounds, because Ruiz is capable of landing a lot more than 10 punches per round. He also isn’t afraid to mix it up and take a shot. Ruiz likes to stay in close where he will be able to neutralize Haye’s power and take advantage of his own by clobbering Haye with uppercuts.

Many people still see Ruiz as a punch and clinch fighter. He’s changed his style a lot in the past couple of years and is now much more of a puncher than he used to be. Before Ruiz was stopped in the 1st round by David Tua a long time ago, Ruiz used to be a slugger, He’s turned back into that same fighter and is much more dangerous and entertaining than he used to be.

I think Ruiz will adopt the punch and clinch tactics if he finds that Haye’s power or speed is too much for him. In that case, Ruiz is every effective at getting his shots off before he’s hit. His jab is excellent and we saw how vulnerable Haye was at getting hit with jabs in his fights against Monte Barrett and Valuev. Haye may run a lot and stay on the outside but he’s not good at avoiding a jab. This is why I see Ruiz, and, of course, the Klitschko brothers, beating Haye.

I think Haye needs to forget about the huge money that he’ll make against the Klitschko brothers and focus more on the Ruiz fight. I think Haye is hugely underestimating Ruiz and seeing him as a Valuev or Maccarinelli type opponent instead of a live threat that could beat him.