By William Mackay: HBO analyst Larry Merchant doesn’t believe that WBA heavyweight champion David Haye will retire if he beats IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko next month. Merchant correctly points out in an article by Michael Marley at examiner.com that Haye would get millions of dollars to fight WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko, and he doesn’t think that Haye would want to bypass that kind of money.

In the interview at examiner.com, Merchant said “Why would he [Haye]? if he beats Wladimir, he’ll be offered tens of millions of dollars to fight brother Vitali….He’s never been tested against such a big, strong and talented heavyweight opponent. Klitschko is so bigger, strong, but just maybe, Haye can be the smaller Jack Dempsey beating the bigger Jess Willard.”

Merchant is right about the “maybe” part but he’s using a terrible comparison by lumping Wladimir in with the likes of Willard. That’s a bad comparison, because Willard wasn’t as skilled as Dempsey and was over-matched. In the case of Wladimir and Haye, Wladimir is not only bigger than Haye, but he’s much more highly skilled. The Dempsey-Willard comparison doesn’t hold water. It’s more like comparing Wladimir with his brother Vitali in his fight against the smallish but fast WBO heavyweight paper champion Herbie Hide in 1999.

Vitali was much too big for the 6’2″ 221 pound Hide and flattened him in two rounds. I see the Haye-Wladimir fight as being a replay of that fight. But I do agree with Merchant about Haye not retiring if he wins. No way will he turn his back on a huge $20 million payday to fight Vitali. It doesn’t matter if the happened two years from now, I see Haye sticking around long enough to make that fight. But that’s neither here nor there, because Haye has little chance of beating Wladimir next week.