By William Mackay: WBA heavyweight champion David Haye (25-1, 23 KO’s) doesn’t plan on letting IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (55-3, 49 KO’s) use his jab when they face off this summer. Wladimir has one of the best jabs in the business, perhaps the best in the entire heavyweight division.
With his huge 6’6” frame, Wladimir is going to be a problem for Haye if the Ukrainian is allowed to fight on the outside and stay away from Haye’s power shots. Haye wants to get close to Wladimir in order to avoid getting hit with those jabs.
In an article at ESPN.co.uk, Haye said “I’ve seen Wladimir keep people at bay with his long jab and I can’t allow him to get into his groove of jabbing and moving. I’ve got to cut down the space, cut down his thinking time, and let the bombs fly.”
Haye will have to be a lot busier than he was in his last fight against 39-year-old Audley Harrison last year, because Haye looked petrified for the first two rounds, looking like he was afraid of getting hit with one of Harrison’s left hands. It wasn’t until the 3rd round that Haye finally threw some shots and hurt Harrison.
In a lot of ways, it was similar to Haye’s low punch output fight against Nikolay Valuev. The Haye that fought in both of those fights would easily be beaten by Wladimir. Haye has got to raise his game several levels because right now he looks like a British level fighter, who has won a handful of fights against fringe heavyweights.
Although Valuev may have been a champion at the time that Haye fought him, I didn’t see Valuev as any kind of champion, particularly after his questionable win over 46-year-old Evander Holyfield a year before the Haye fight. That fight right there told you how badly Valuev had deteriorated as a fighter. He was both rusty and depleted by the time Haye fought him.
Haye has to look better than he did against Valuev and Harrison, because Wladimir will jab him to pieces. The looping pot shots that Haye likes to throw will be blocked by Wladimir’s gloves. The only thing that Haye can do then is resort to throwing rabbit punches and holding and hitting. I saw a bit of that in the Harrison fight. If the referee is on his game, Haye will lose points and may get disqualified if he goes rabbit crazy or decides to grab around the neck and throwing punches with his other hand.
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