By Scott Gilfoid: With the news today that World Boxing Association heavyweight champion David Haye and WBC heavyweight title holder Vitali Klitschko have reached a preliminary agreement for a fight in the future, you can pretty much assume that Haye won’t have his title for long. It seems to be that Klitschko and Haye were close to fighting before, so it really doesn’t mean too much to me that Haye and Klitschko have come to some kind of agreement for a fight.

I’ll believe when I actually see Haye climb into the ring to fight Klitschko, but not before. I honestly don’t see this dude even getting by his next opponent John Ruiz. I think Ruiz is going to open some eyes by stopping Haye in the 7th or 8th round. Believe me, it won’t take Vitali Klitschko or his brother Wladimir to do the job on Haye. Ruiz will do the job quite nicely, thank you.

Haye won’t be able to run his way to a victory against Ruiz nor will he be able to stop him by throwing pot shots. Ruiz can be stopped, but it takes guts and a fighter that is willing to get in close enough to throw combinations like David Tua did in his 1st round knockout of Ruiz in 1996.

Ruiz hasn’t been stopped since then, and that’s because he has a good chin and good boxing skills. I’d like to see Haye try to knock him out, because it will be like a replay of Haye’s bout against Carl Thompson. Ruiz will take out Haye once he gasses out. But let’s assume for sake of argument that Haye does beat Ruiz by a questionable narrow decision, which is the only way I can see Haye beating him, Haye would still have next to zero chance of beating Vitali Klitschko.

It wouldn’t even be fun to watch, because Haye would be too small and too limited to get the win. Haye would likely be running his backside off, doing laps around the ring trying to prevent from getting nailed by Vitali. When Haye would throw a punch, all I could see him doing is throwing a tentative reaching jab to the midsection of Vitali, while at the same time having his feet ready to immediately retreat.

If you thought that it was boring watching Kevin Johnson fight in a survival manner on the ropes for 12 rounds against Klitschko, just wait until you see Haye mix it up with Klitschko. Haye won’t try to mix it up with him, because if he does he’s a goner. That’s just the way it is.

I really do hope that Haye takes the fight with Vitali and doesn’t scamper off just before the contract is signed to fight someone less threatening. The two were close to signing a contract last time, but Haye took off in another direction and fought Nikolay Valuev instead.

I just don’t know what to expect next time. So the way I see it is if Haye does go ahead and take the fight with Klitschko, Haye will last maybe two or three rounds before getting royally destroyed. The only way that Haye lasts longer than that is if he runs like mad around the ring to avoid getting hit. Haye just doesn’t have the size, arm length or the chin to compete with the likes of Vitali.

He can’t jab and his pot shots will be entirely ineffective compared to the rain of punches that will be thrown his way. I can see it like this: Vitali lands forty punches, and then Haye lands a pot shot. Vitali then lands another 40 punches followed by another wild pot shot from Haye. In between that time, Vitali will likely have to chase Haye around the ring to catch him.

Haye ran like crazy against the light hitting Valuev. What does that tell you that Haye will likely do against Vitali, a much harder puncher? The good thing that I can see with Haye getting driven into the canvas by Vitali is that Haye would then be sent down to the depths of the heavyweight pack, where he would be forced to fight it out with other top contenders like Odlanier Solis, Kevin Johnson, Eddie Chambers and Alexander Povetkin. I don’t like Haye’s chances of winning fights against of those heavyweights, I must say. Those guys will likely send Haye packing for the cruiserweight division again.