By Jim Dower: Speaking with Dan Rafael at ESPN, IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko says he thinks WBA heavyweight champion David Haye will eventually fight him before retiring from the sport. Wladimir says Haye is welcome to fight him still on July 2nd, because Wladimir has no problems with fighting Haye only two months after a tune-up fight with Dereck Chisora. However, Wladimir thinks Haye will be a loser if he retires without having faced him or his brother Vitali Klitschko.

In the Rafael article, Wladimir said “He can have a fight in between. I don’t care. But I don’t trust this guy. I would fight him July 2nd, but I don’t want to be inactive. I was champion before David Haye got into the heavyweight division and I will be champion after he retires. If he wants to fight, let him fight. But I’m doing my schedule my way. Either you join it, or not.”

Haye wants Wladimir to forget about fighting the tune-up bout with Chisora on April 30th. Wladimir wants the fight to not only keep active, since he hasn’t fought since September 2010, but also to help promote his fight with Haye. Chisora is one of the top heavyweights in the UK, and a fight against him will no doubt get a lot of publicity and air time in the UK. Wladimir says he was worried that if he didn’t take the tune-up bout with Chisora after having signed the contract with Haye, it would be Haye that would turn around and sign on for a tune-up bout against Chisora himself, as this would be a big pay-per-view bout in Britain, Wladimir points out.

Perhaps some of Haye’s anger at Wladimir for taking the tune-up fight with Chisora is that he may have wanted to fight Chisora himself, and by Wladimir fighting him first, he will have beaten Haye to the punch and taken the steam out of a potential Haye-Chisora fight in the future. After Chisora likely gets thrashed by Wladimir, boxing fans in the UK probably won’t be too excited about seeing Haye fight Chisora. The money that Haye could have made in a fight against Chisora would be a lot greater if Chisora was still unbeaten than it would be once Wladimir finishes dismantling him.