By William Mackay: The last thing that WBA heavyweight champion David Haye (25-1, 23 KO’s) wants is to be eating jabs all night long in his July 2nd battle against IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko at the Imtech Arena in Hamburg, Germany. So instead of running around the ring trying to avoid the big shots from Wladimir, Haye says he plans on taking the fight to him early to try and get him out. Whether Haye can overcome his own natural tendency to avoid exchanges when facing big heavyweight remains to be seen.

We know from Haye’s fight with 7-foot Nikolay Valuev that Haye never once really attacked Valuev. Even when Haye had Valuev slightly hurt in the 12th, Haye seemed to hold back out of fear. Haye will have to get past this internal reluctance to mix it up if he plans on putting into action what he’s talking about.

“I’ve got to put him [Wladimir] into a dogfight real quick,” Haye said in an interview at Sky Sports News. “I can’t stand off at long range with him and expect to out-jab him because that’s his game and that’s what he’s done his whole career. That’s what he’s successful at.”

Haye is right, of course. He has no chance if he runs around the ring like he did against Valuev and how he’s typically been fighting lately. The Haye that fought Valuev and Audley Harrison would be easily beaten by Wladimir. Haye can’t run around and get his head torn off with the jabs from Wladimir because he’s excellent at picking off runners from the outside. At the same time, Haye has to have a better plan than to dash in and throw one pot shot hoping to hurt Wladimir. That’s desperation and it’s not going to work. Haye has to throw combinations and he needs to straighten out his punches, if that’s possible. He’ll get his clocked cleaned if he throws his looping shots. Those are shots that would get Haye in a lot of trouble against not on Wladimir but his brother and a number of younger heavyweights that Haye, for some reason, has chosen not to fight.