By Jason Kim: If WBA heavyweight champion David Haye (25-1, 23 kO’s) is to fight his number #1 mandatory challenger Ruslan Chagaev (27-1-1, 17 KO’s) in May, Haye may have to agree to fight the 32-year-old Chagaev in Germany or a neutral country rather than the UK if Chagaev’s hepatitis B is still present. The British Board of Control will likely not permit Chagaev to fight Haye inside the UK due to Chagaev’s medical problems if they’re still present.

This means that unless Haye does decide to agree to fight Chagaev outside of the UK, Haye could possibly have his World Boxing Association heavyweight title stripped from him by the WBA. That would be the worse cut off all, as Haye already lost his July 2nd big money unification bout with IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (55-3, 49 KO’s) after Haye decided he didn’t like the idea of Klitschko fighting a tune-up bout against Dereck Chisora (14-0, 9 KO’s) on April 30th. H

aye was against the tune-up, feeling that Wladimir would then decide on not fighting him in July due to the wear and tear he took in the Chisora fight. Wladimir says that Haye can still fight him on that date, but that’s really Haye’s only chance at fighting Wladimir for the remainder of the year. Wladimir has booked a fight in September against Tomasz Adamek, and Haye plans on retiring in October when he turns 31. Haye will then have to extend his retirement deadline if he still wants to fight Klitschko or his brother Vitali Klitschko.

Haye doesn’t need his WBA title to fight for the Klitschko brothers and get big money. However, the brothers really want his WBA belt and they’ll likely make Haye wait longer to face them while they go after whoever gets the belt should Haye get stripped of it by the WBA for not facing Chagaev.