By Sean McDaniel: With IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko deciding to take a tune-up bout against Dereck Chisora on April 30th, WBA heavyweight champion David Haye (25-1, 23 KO’s) is hinting that he will go ahead and defend his World Boxing Association title against mandatory challenger former WBA heavyweight champion Ruslan Chagaev (27-1-1, 17 KO’s) next in a fight that will likely be taking place in May.

This, of course, would make it pretty impossible for Haye to be ready for a fight against Wladimir on July 2nd unless Haye knocks Chagaev out in the first few rounds without getting hit much. That’s probably not going to happen because Chagaev is a smart fighter, has a good jab, a decent chin and won’t be looking to slug with Haye.

Haye doesn’t want Klitschko taking a tune-up bout before their July fight and sees it as a sign that Wladimir is looking to take the coward’s way out of the fight with him. Wladimir says he’s just taking a tune-up bout because he hasn’t fought since last September and doesn’t want to be rusty for the Haye fight.

Chagaev, 32, recently defeated Kali Meeham and Travis Walker in 2010, but failed to impress in either fight. Chagaev previously held the WBA heavyweight title between 2007 and 2009, but did nothing notable during his time as a champion. He defeated then WBA champion Nikolay Valuev by a questionable 12 round majority decision in April 2007, and then defended the title only twice in the two years as a champion, beating Matt Skelton and Carl Davis Drumond. In June 2009, without out the WBA title, Chagaev was easily beaten by Wladimir Klitschko in a 9th round stoppage. Chagaev barely landed a glove on Wladimir and looked badly over-matched. In Chagaev’s last fight against 6’4 1/2″ Travis Walker in November 2010, Chagaev came in looking heavy but still fought reasonably well throwing sustained combinations and hard left hands to dominate most of the rounds. Chagaev did spend a lot of time leaning on the ropes and looking to counter, but he did a good job of getting out of the way of a lot of Walker’s big shots.

Like Haye, Chagaev is a small heavyweight at only 6’1″ 225 lbs. Chagaev would definitely be the best heavyweight that Haye has faced in his career, and I think he would have a good shot at beating Haye if he were able to take the fight past the 6th round. Chagaev is smart and his left hand is pretty decent weapon. Chagaev is very tough. His ability to throw sustained combinations would be a huge problem for Haye. Against Walker, Chagaev sometimes landed six to eight punches consecutively in throwing combinations. It’s hard to imagine that Haye, with his weak chin, would be able to take those kinds of shots. Chagaev punches as hard as anyone Haye ever faced and that could be bad news for Haye if he can’t get Chagaev out of there early and is forced to take his shots in the second half of the fight.