By Chris Williams: I saw WBA heavyweight champion David Haye’s fight against John Ruiz and I came away not nearly as impressed with many of the boxing fans that saw the fight. What I saw of Haye was a fighter that would have likely struggled badly if he was in with a better heavyweight than Ruiz. If Haye had been in with Samuel Peter, Tomasz Adamek, Chris Arreola or Alexander Povetkin, to name just a small handful, I think there’s a really good chance that Haye would have been knocked out last Saturday night. The reason why I feel this way is because of how badly flawed Haye looked against Ruiz. Haye looked positively atrocious in four different areas: 1. Stamina, 2. Chin, 3. Porous defense and 4. punching technique.

You can add to this list Haye’s tendency to come unglued when pressured, seeming to panic and back away in a straight line. I saw Haye doing this constantly against Ruiz, and even bouncing off the ropes like a professional wrestler a couple of times. When Haye would bounce off the ropes, he would come flying straight back into the wheelhouse of Ruiz. I can’t remember seeing such an amateurish move from a world champion boxer before. It looked as if Haye had never boxed a round in his life.

It may not seem like a lot of problems to some people, but I think that’s more than enough to cause Haye big problems if he winds up facing IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko next. I know Wladimir has to see what I see in Haye’s many flaws and must be licking his chops right about now looking forward to taking advantage of them all. With Haye talking about wanting to fight Wladimir in late 2010, it leaves Haye with very little time to fix his many flaws in his game by the time he meets Wladimir.

With that many problems hindering Haye, I don’t see how he improve enough to beat Wladimir. Haye might need to get a new trainer, someone like Freddie Roach, who can look at the flaws that I’ve seen with Haye and work on patching them up as best as he can before Haye steps in the ring with Klitschko. Other than Roach, I don’t know of any other trainer that can help Haye with his many flaws before he faces a huge heavyweight like Wladimir.

Haye’s chin is obviously something that Roach can’t help, no matter what he does. Haye is basically stuck with his weak chin. But Roach can teach Haye to pick up his left hand and put it near his face to block some of the incoming fire instead of keeping it hanging uselessly down by his waist. If Haye fights with his left hand down against Wladimir, Haye will end up with a pizza face before long.

Even if Haye circles the ring constantly on the outside for 12 rounds, Wladimir won’t have any problem connecting with jabs all night long and messing Haye’s face up. And Haye will have to stop throwing those amateurish lunging punches. That’s not going to work against Wladimir. In fact, that will probably end up causing Haye to get knocked out even quicker. He needs to stay compacted and not lunge or jump when throwing punches like he’s done against Ruiz and Nikolay Valuev.

Haye was able to get away with fighting like that against those two fighters, only because neither of them has good hand speed nor can they punch. Wladimir has very good hand speed and has knockout power in both hands, not just one like Haye. If Haye wants to avoid getting knocked out, I think he needs to be taught not to jump or throw his lunching shots.