By Scott Gilfoid: If by chance that WBA heavyweight champion David Haye beats IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko next month there will be a huge amount of interest in a revenge of the brother fight between WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko against Haye. Normally, a fighter like Haye would jump at the chance of facing Vitali and likely getting an even bigger payday than in the Wladimir fight.

However, Haye doesn’t seem to eager for that fight, saying to the BBC Sport: “If there’s another fight that can be made quickly then lets it it on. Otherwise, once I’ve unified the titles [meaning three of the four], there’s nowhere else to go. I’ve always anticipated retiring and have adjusted my life according to that. I cease being 30 on October 13 of this year.”

In other words, if Vitali doesn’t drop his September fight against Tomasz Adamek, which Vitali obviously won’t do because he’s already signed the contract, then Haye will retire in October. Does that sound like a fighter that wants to fight Vitali to you? I think Haye wants no part of Vitali and would be happy to take a win over Wladimir and ride off into the sunset on a positive note rather than taking on Vitali and likely taking a bad beating from him. If a fighter like Haye can’t postpone his retirement for a few months in order to face Vitali and collect a $20 million check that tells me that Haye is flat out afraid to get beaten up. I’m not surprised. I see that as cop out and it’s so utterly predictable it’s not funny.

None of Haye’s usual tricks would work against Vitali because he can take a shot and would put a fearsome beating on Haye unless Haye’s trainer Adam Booth quickly threw in the towel of surrender when the going gets tough like Booth did when Haye took a few head shots against Carl Thompson in 2004. It might not take a lot for Booth to toss in the towel if Vitali started doing a tap dance on Haye’s head.

I don’t see Haye beating Wladimir, so none of this probably matters. But if Haye does somehow score a knockout of Wladimir, that’s the end of the road for him unless Haye takes on some other heavyweight not named Vitali in a final miking bout before Haye retires in October.