By William Mackay: Picture credit: Public Address/Stefan Hoyer – IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (55-3, 49 KO’s) sees his July 2nd opponent WBA heavyweight champion David Haye (25-1, 23 KO’s) as a media creation, a fighter that has made a name for himself by abusing him in the media to get his name known. Wladimir says he doesn’t feel that Haye has earned the right for him to get 50% of the purse split for their fight given the quality of fighters that Haye has fought in the past to get to this point.

Speaking with BBC Sport, Wladimir said “David Haye gets 50% of the deal. I don’t think he deserves it with his performances in the past, but the man has been promoting himself insulting the Klitschko brothers in an abusing and disrespectful ways. I hype won’t be for nothing. I hope this fight will happen. My game plan hasn’t changed in the past two years. I will jab, jab, grab as he has been describing for 12 long rounds, but long for David Haye. I hope he won’t give up between rounds like other opponents did. And I hope he won’t get knocked out too soon. I plan on knocking him out in the 12th round.”

Wladimir has made no secret of his desire to punish Haye slowly for 12 rounds by methodically jabbing him over and over again and turning his face into a reddened mass of blood and swelling tissue. Haye says he’s not going to let Wladimir do this, but it’s going to be tough to avoid getting hit with Wladimir’s jabs even if Haye runs more than he did in his controversial 12 round decision win over Nikolay Valuev in 2009. Wladimir is good at picking off a moving target with his jab and Haye isn’t exactly light on his feet. He’s going to get hit a lot by Wladimir’s jabs unless Haye can stop Wladimir early. A lot boxing experts think that Haye has to knock Wladimir out early or his chances of success drop off dramatically once the fight goes past the five rounds. By then, Haye will have taken a lot of punishment and his face will likely already be swelling up from Wladimir’s powerful jabs. Wladimir has the best jab in the division and it’s more like a power punch than a jab. Haye won’t last long with Wladimir jabbing him.

Haye has to do a great job of promoting this fight because it may be his last shot before retirement. To maximize would could be his last payday, Haye has to talk as much as possible to get people interesting in watching this fight.