By William Mackay: Audley Harrison (27-4, 20 KO’s) doesn’t see any improvement from World Boxing Association (WBA) heavyweight champion David Haye (24-1, 22 KO’s) and feels he hasn’t learned anything since being stopped by 40-year-old Carl Thompson in an upset 5th round TKO loss in 2004. Speaking with Sky Sports news, Harrison said “David Haye has been a professional for almost the same time as me, since 2001, but he’s still got the same trainer Adam Booth, and he hasn’t really learned how to fight. He’s got a lot of talent, just like I have with winning the Olympics, but every time I’ve lost I’ve been able to go back to the drawing board, adjust my training, adjust something in terms of learning how to fight. David Haye hasn’t done that since he lost to Carl Thompson. He’s been exactly the same fighter, maybe a little quicker, maybe a little stronger. We’re creatures of habits and David Haye is going to be put in a situation where he makes the same mistakes.”

Harrison is right. Haye does fight the exact same way he did back in 2004. Haye still throws the same wild haymakers that he threw then, and he still loads up with every shot. Like then, Haye still throws rabbit shots when in close and tries to knock his opponents out early. Haye does move a lot more now than he did at cruiserweight, because he obviously doesn’t trust his own chin to be able to take the big shots from the larger heavyweights. Haye has been coming into his fights at heavyweight in the region of 217 to 220, and he doesn’t look nearly as fast as he did at cruiserweight. Haye would be better off stripping off the baby fat and getting down to a trim 205 or 210 and trying to fight at that weight, because the extra pounds he’s put on to fight at heavyweight hasn’t made him a bigger puncher and seems to have negatively affected his hand speed.

Harrison says “People definitely overestimate David Haye….He had a questionable decision over [Nikolay] Valuev, in his fight with John Ruiz, he was so vulnerable; he knocked the guy down in the first round, yet it went on another fight. David Haye is a false prophet, as I’ve said before. He’s definitely not the future of the heavyweight division.”

I agree with Harrison, except I think Valuev actually beat Haye in their fight. I don’t see Haye as the future of the heavyweight division. In fact, I see him as a paper title holder, the weakest of the heavyweight champions by far.