By Jason Kim: After losing his World Boxing Association heavyweight title last Saturday night by a 12 round majority decision to David Haye, big Nikolay Valuev (50-2, 34 KO’s) finds himself in the uncomfortable position of having to rebuild his career once again to try and claw his way back to another title shot against one of the champion.

Unaccustomed to losing, Valuev, now 36, was defeated by the British challenger Haye in a fight where both fighters averaged little more than a small handful of punches thrown per round. According to one site that posted the final punch stat numbers, the younger 29-year-old Haye threw only 132 punches during the entire fight while Valuev was said to have thrown 98.

Since there was no compu-box numbers of the bout, it’s unknown what the actual punch stats were. But one thing was certain, neither fighter threw more than a small amount of punches during the fight. Valuev tried, but Haye moved constantly and wasn’t interested staying stationary for a more than a second or two in every round.

The loss, close as it was, hurts none the less for Valuev, as it will take him time and hard work to get another title shot. If Valuev is interested in going after the WBA heavyweight title again, he’s going to have to get in line, fight some top contenders and wait around for Haye. The British fighter has a mandatory defense coming up in 2010 against mandatory challenger John Ruiz. Haye needs to fight him by May or risk being stripped of his title.

After that, if Haye is still champion, he wants to defend the title against one of the Klitschko brothers. If Haye can negotiate for the fight without backing out again like he did twice before, then we can expect with a high degree of certainty that the WBA title will be in the hands of one of the Klitschko brothers by the end of 2010. This actually may play into the hands of Valuev if he’s still fighting and hasn’t retired.

Of all the WBA contenders, Valuev is perhaps the most popular and a fight against either of the Klitschko brothers would be popular in Europe. It wouldn’t likely do well in the U.S., though, because neither the Klitschko brothers or Valuev are considered popular fighters to the boxing fans because of their dull style of fighting and their modest personalities. At the very least, Valuev will be looking at 2011 for his next title shot, unless either Vitali or Wladimir elect to fight him before that time.

One of them will be fighting Haye, while the other will be looking for an opponent. It would be best for Valuev if Wladimir chooses to fight Haye next, because Wladimir doesn’t have much wriggle room in his schedule because he needs to defend his IBF title against his number #1 mandatory challenger Alexander Povetkin as soon as possible.

Vitali Klitschko is fighting Kevin Johnson next, and following that there could be a possibility for Vitali to defend his title against Valuev. Other than Haye, that would be Vitali’s best chance of getting a big payday. He’s not going to find one against any of the current top 15 contenders in the WBC that’s for sure.

Whether Valuev fights Haye again or one of the Klitschko brothers, his chances of success are low. Valuev looked slow and limited against Haye last Saturday. And against the Klitschko brothers, who wouldn’t be shy about throwing punches, Valuev would have little chance. The likely outcome against either of them would be an early knockout. If Valuev needs the money, then he should stick around but if he honestly believes he can beat the Klitschko brothers or even Haye, I think Valuev is deceiving himself. I think he can fight Haye closely, but I doubt he’ll do any better in a rematch.