Would Haye have been able to take the kind of punishment that Briggs did against Vitali?

By Boxing News - 10/17/2010 - Comments

By William Mackay: While I was watching Shannon Briggs (51-6-1, 45 KO’s) slowly get his face rearranged by World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko (41-2, 38 KO’s) on Saturday night in Hamburg, Germany, I couldn’t help wonder how much punishment that WBA heavyweight champion David Haye (24-1, 22 KO’s) would have been able to endure before Haye was either flattened or had his trainer/manager Adam Booth throw in the white towel of surrender in the corner. Briggs, 38, took some enormous right hands during the fight and it was almost sickening to watch after awhile.

I’ve never really seen Haye take a lot of punishment in his fights. Part of the reason for that is Haye has fought most of his career in the talent poor cruiserweight division. Haye moved up to the heavyweight division just when the cruiserweight division started to heat up with guys like Danny Green, Marco Huck, Denis Lebedev and Alexander Frenkel began to make some noise. At heavyweight, Haye has been in with only light punchers like journeyman Monte Barrett, Nikolay Valuev and John Ruiz.

None of them are what you would consider dangerous heavyweights. The one fight where Haye was hit with any regularity was his 5th round TKO loss to 40-year-old Carl Thompson in 2004. Haye didn’t really get hit in that fight until the 4th and 5th rounds. He didn’t really take a lot of punishment. However, as soon as he did start to get clipped with some right hands from Thompson, Booth threw in the towel just when the fight was getting interesting. In looking at that fight, I can’t help but to picture Haye getting stopped in the 1st round by Vitali.

The reason is because Haye would get hit a lot in the opening round by Vitali, and I can’t see Booth hanging onto his towel for long in watching Haye absorb one big fight hand after another. He won’t want to have Haye get beaten up and potentially ruined as a fighter. This is why I see either Haye hitting the deck in the opening round or having Booth throw in the towel immediately as soon as Haye gets hit hard a few times.

I know Haye is going to be running like a Cheetah against Vitali, but that won’t work because Vitali will corner him and light Haye up with right hands. I think Booth will have that towel ready to sail into the ring like a football quarterback. He might need to practice his form so that he can get it to sail for enough to get the referee’s attention to save Haye from getting tagged without need the last two or three times by Vitali.



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