By Matt Stein: Dan Rafael of ESPN is reporting that IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko will likely be facing his number #1 IBF mandatory challenger Alexander Povetkin next rather than fighting WBA heavyweight champion David Haye in a unification match like Wladimir had been hoping for. According to Rafael, Klitschko’s manger Bernd Boente said that Wladimir made a 50-50 financial offer to the 29-year-old Haye for a fight that would take place in the fall of this year, with no options for future bouts with Haye.

But apparently this wasn’t appealing enough for Haye, who is said to be looking at easier opponents like Audley Harrison, Tomasz Adamek, Nikolay Valuev and Ruslan Chagaev instead. It’s interesting that Haye isn’t jumping all over the Klitschko bout, since he’s been talking about wanting to fight Wladimir and his brother Vitali Klitschko for the past two years. Recently, his manager Adam Boothe said that there wouldn’t be any fight with Wladimir unless he agreed to a 50-50 deal.

Well, now that Wladimir has apparently agreed to that, it’s still not enough. Klitschko and Boente are still hoping to be able to put together a fight with Haye, but if the fight doesn’t happen they are prepared to move on and face Povetkin instead.

By giving in to Haye and Boothe’s request of a 50-50 deal, it shows how badly Klitschko wants the fight with Haye, because it seems ridiculous for Wladimir, who is considered by many boxing fans to be the be the best heavyweight in the division, to give Haye a 50-50 deal based on his limited experience at heavyweight.

Haye only recently moved up to the heavyweight division in 2008, and has faced generally older fighters since he moved up. Since moving up to the heavyweight division in 2008, Haye has fought Monte Barrett, Nikolay Valuev and John Ruiz. All of them are past their mid 30s and not big punchers. Most of Haye’s prior experience has come at cruiserweight, where he briefly held multiple titles before moving up in weight to the heavyweight division two years ago.

Haye talked a lot of trash to get fights with both of the Klitschko brothers without really fighting anyone, but then was unable to make it into the ring each time. Many people are predicting that Haye will try and milk his WBA title for as long as he can by facing the limited opposition that the WBA currently ranked in the 15. Haye has to fight a rematch with Valuev at some point, and has Chagaev as his mandatory challenger.

But it’s more than likely that Haye opts to take an easy fight against Harrison next or another beatable fighter that he can get an easy payday against before he decides to tackle Valuev or Chagaev. Wladimir and his brother Vitali likely will be the last stop for Haye in his career before he retires in two years at 31. Haye has said that he plans on retiring at 31, but like his talking about wanting to fight the Klitschko brothers, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Haye alter his retirement plans and sticking around long after his 31st birthday.