By Scott Gilfoid: Promoter Frank Warren believes that WBA heavyweight champion David Haye (24-1, 22 KO’s) is avoiding taking on the Klitschko brothers, according to boxing news from Skysports. Haye, 29, is expected to be making an announcement for his next fight on Tuesdays and most boxing experts feel that it’s going to be 38-year-old Audley Harrison (27-4, 20 KO’s) who gets the opportunity. This is really bad. I never thought I would see the day that Haye would try and milk his title.
When he moved up to the heavyweight division in 2008, Haye said he wanted to fight both of the Klitschko brothers. But instead of fighting them, Haye has gone after arguably much easier targets like Monte Barrett, Nikolay Valuev and John Ruiz. If Haye does end up fighting Harrison, that would be yet another soft opponent for Haye.
Warren says “Haye’s taken the easy option by fighting Harrison for the pay day and it’s not what he said he was going to do.”
Warren is correct. Haye said he was going to take on both the Klitschko brothers, unify the heavyweight titles and clean up the division. Thus far, Haye has been cleaning up on the older heavyweights in the division and doing an admirable job at it. None of his three opponents he’s faced at heavyweight have been younger than 36.
“Without a doubt he’s avoiding the Klitschkos. He signed a contract to fight one of them and didn’t carry it through, then pulled out against the other one. The reason he’s not fighting one of them is because he wouldn’t do a straight 50-50 split. Haye said he would fight them both. It’s not good saying you’ll do these things and then don’t because you’re looking to cash in.”
I totally agree with what Mr. Warren is saying. Haye had his chance to fight both of them and instead has taken the easier path. The thing is Haye would make a ton of money fighting them. It’s not like he would go home poor after being destroyed by them. He would be set for life even if things were to turn out bad for him, which they likely would if he ever fought them. Fighting Harrison and the softer targets in the heavyweight division isn’t going to endear Haye to the boxing public.
I’m not sure if it was Haye’s brilliant idea to take on Harrison, but Haye is going to continue to take a lot of heat about this fight for a long time to come. Haye should have just stood up and fought one of the Klitschkos.
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