61 days and Haye still hasn’t picked out his next opponent

By Boxing News - 07/04/2010 - Comments

By Dan Ambrose: WBA heavyweight champion David Haye (24-1, 22 KO’s) hasn’t seen action since stopping 38-year-old former WBA heavyweight champion John Ruiz in the 9th round on April 3rd. Haye, 29, still hasn’t picked out who his next opponent will be after more than two months since the Ruiz fight.

You have to wonder whether Haye will fight at all for the remainder of the year, because Haye only fought once in 2009, beating WBA heavyweight champion Nikolay Valuev by a close 12 round majority decision, and twice in 2008 in Haye’s wins over Enzo Maccarinelli and Monte Barrett.

With the amount of time off that Haye has had in the past two years, you can’t exactly say he’s been working himself to death in the ring. There were hopes that Haye’s next opponent would be IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko. Unfortunately, Haye and Wladimir were unable to come to an agreement for a fight during their negotiations.

Wladimir will now be facing his number #1 IBF challenger Alexander Povetkin in September, while Haye decides what he’s going to do with himself. European Boxing Union (EBU) heavyweight champion Audley Harrison was said to be Haye’s likely next opponent. However, recently said he had no plans on fighting the 38-year-old Harrsion.

But if not Harrison and now Wladimir, then who, if anyone, will Haye be fighting in 2010? WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko would make for the perfect opponent for Haye to fight. Vitali is 6’7”, moves as slow as Valuev, and is fairly easy to hit. Haye would have an excellent chance of out-boxing the 38-year-old Vitali.

However, Haye hasn’t shown much interest in fighting the older brother and it’s not likely that he’s going to get the opportunity to fight Haye. Vitali would like nothing better than to be able to get in the ring with Haye so that he could test Haye’s sometime fragile chin. But with Haye mentioning no opponents right now, it doesn’t look like Vitali someone that Haye will be fighting anytime soon.

Haye says he wants to retire by the time he turns 31, which is next year in October. Haye has a lot of work to do if he wants to unify the heavyweight titles like he says he wants to before retiring.

Unless Haye really believes he can snap his fingers and have both Klitschko brothers standing in line to fight him one after another, Haye needs to try and go after at least one of the Klitschkos as soon as possible to have the chance to capture both of the titles before he retires at 31.



Comments are closed.