By Scott Gilfoid: World Boxing Association heavyweight champion David Haye (23-1, 21 KO’s) sees his fight coming up against John Ruiz (44-8-1, 30 KO’s) on April 3rd as one that will be filled with plenty of fouls coming from the 38-year-old Ruiz when they meet at the M.E.N. Arena, in Manchester, Lancashire. In an article at The Sun, the 29-year-old Haye says “I am preparing for him [Ruiz] to try to butt me, hit me low and try to dislocate my shoulder if we get in clinches. Ruiz will use every trick in the book to try to unsettle me and you can expect both boxers to take a lot of shots in the first three or four rounds.”

Haye is probably right about getting hit with head butts and maybe some low blows, but it won’t be intentional. Ruiz comes in with his head lowered a lot of the time and accidently bumps into his opponents with his head. He doesn’t try to head butt them, but rather it’s the end result of his tendency to dive in head first in his fights. A head butt here and there can’t be avoided unfortunately.

Ruiz also throws some low blows on occasion, but that’s only because he throws a lot of blows to the midsection. Every once in a great while, Ruiz will have one of his shots stray low but again, it’s not intentional. These things are par for the course in fighting at the heavyweight level.

Haye is going to have to get used to it, because the fighters are bigger at heavyweight and rougher than the small cruiserweights that Haye build most of his record in his career. The good thing that Haye has going for him is that the fight will be taking place in England, so I’m pretty sure that if Ruiz does any kind of fouling, whether intentional or not, he’ll have points taken away from him by the judges.

I don’t expect for Ruiz, a visiting fighter, to be given too much leeway when it comes to fouling. Haye needs to take a look at himself when he talks about fouling. In his fight with Monte Barrett, Haye landed a number of rabbit shots that I felt that he deserved to be docked a point. He wasn’t.

Haye says “I know I have it in me to become the first to stop Ruiz inside the distance, but I am not failing for the idea that I just have to turn up to beat him. I did that once earlier in my career against Carl Thomason and look what happened to me. He knocked me out in the 5th round and I got the biggest wake-up call ever.”

I don’t imagine that Haye will come close to knocking Ruiz out. Haye can punch a little bit for a heavyweight, but he’s not that big of a puncher compared to some of the heavyweights that Ruiz has already beaten in his career like Hasim Rahman, Evander Holyfield and Kirk Johnson. I rate all three of those guys as a better puncher than Haye. Fres Oquendo, Ruslan Chagaev and Andrew Golota all probably punch as hard as Haye, if not harder, and Ruiz did okay against all of them without getting hurt.

Haye says “After Ruiz, and not for one moment I am underestimating the experience, aggression and sheer will to win he brings to the ring. I don’t care whether it’s Wladimir or Vitali Klitschko next. I want to try and emulate what my all-time hero Lennox Lewis did in unifying the heavyweight division.” I think Haye is deluded if he’s going to be anything like Lewis. That’s not going to happen even if Haye sticks around beyond his 31st birth day, which is when he says he wants to retire. Lewis fought everyone and did it for years, not just for three or four year period like Haye will be doing with his career. Haye simply doesn’t have enough time to do what Lewis did. He also doesn’t have the same size and power as the 6’5” 250 Lewis. Haye is a small heavyweight at 6’2” 217, whereas Lewis was a huge one. Haye probably doesn’t have the size to compete with the bigger heavyweights like the Klitschko brothers.

“I’ve heard Wladimir has been saying I’ve got a glass jaw because that defeat against [Carl] Thompson. But it’s a bit rich coming from him considering the number of times he’s been battered.” Haye is partially right. Wladimir has been stopped three times and knocked down a number of times during his career. However, Wladimir has been stopped by huge punchers in their primes, and it’s understandable that Wladimir would be taken out by big punchers like Ross Puritty, Corrie Sanders and Lamon Brewster.