By Scott Gilfoid: Emanuel Steward, the trainer of IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, has his doubts that World Boxing Association heavyweight champion David Haye (23-1, 21 KO’s) will fight Wladimir in the future. Steward says in an article at the Mirror, “I don’t think Haye is going to do anything but talk. He may fight Ruiz but he will not fight Klitschko. Haye should win against Ruiz but you always worry about him [Haye] because he’s too chinny. Even Monte Barrett had him down.” Mr. Steward, I totally agree with you. I’ve thought those exact same things about Haye for some time.

I see Haye’s chin as one of the weakest in the heavyweight division, and he brags about himself 24/7 as if he’s the best heavyweight in the world. I’m still waiting for him to fight someone I consider good. I don’t count Monte Barrett, Nikolay Valuev and Tomasz Bonin as fitting in that category. I also am not impressed with any of Haye’s wins at the cruiserweight level.

I’m sorry, but I’m not impressed with wins over Enzo Maccarinelli, Jean Marc Mormeck and Giacobbe Fragomeni. Those are arguably Haye’s best wins while fighting at cruiserweight, and I don’t see any of those guys as comparable to fighters like Danny Green, Tomasz Adamek, Steve Cunningham, Ola Afolabi, Krzystof Wlodarczyk, Denis Lebedev, Victor Ramirez, and Alexander Alexeev.

Haye departed the cruiserweight division just when those fighters rose up in the ranks. It was great timing that Haye used in moving up weight, because if he stayed at cruiserweight I think some or all of those fighters would have beaten him.

Haye has a fight coming up on April 3rd against John Ruiz at the M.E.N. Arena, Manchester, England. This will be Haye’s first title defense. I don’t have a good feeling about Haye winning this fight. I wish I could say he’ll definitely win it but I can’t. With Haye’s weak chin, I think Ruiz will land something decent and plant Haye on the canvas for the ten count.

The bad thing about that is it will mean that we won’t see a future fight between Haye and the Klitschko brothers unless they still have interest in fighting him coming off a loss. I don’t see why they would. It won’t be like he can do much convincing if he gets beat by Ruiz. For Haye to get a fight against the Klitschko brothers at that point, he’d have to turn around and fight a rematch with Ruiz and take him out with a flashy knockout.

I don’t see that happening. Haye hits hard at cruiserweight, but doesn’t seem to have a ton of power at the heavyweight level. A fighter that Haye reminds me a lot is Kirk Johnson. Some people may not remember him because it’s been awhile since Johnson has been mentioned. The 6’2” Johnson was known for his fast hands, decent power and for his 4th round knockout win against Oleg Maskaev in 2000.

That win did a lot for Johnson’s career, but when he stepped it up against Ruiz in 2002, Johnson was defeated by a 10 round disqualification. Ruiz has no problems with Johnson’s hand speed and totally nullified all his advantages. Johnson was later destroyed by Vitali Klitschko in a 2nd round knockout in 2003. Haye doesn’t see blazing fast at heavyweight, and his power isn’t all that impressive either, at least for a heavyweight.

Haye might be a good puncher at cruiserweight, but at heavyweight he seems like an average puncher. I think Ruiz will beat him unless Haye can get lucky and score a knockout. I doubt very much that will happen. Ruiz has a good chin and Haye doesn’t throw enough combinations for him to put Ruiz in any kind of danger. Throwing an occasional pot shot won’t get the job done against Ruiz.