By Scott Gilfoid: As we’ve seen in a number of WBA heavyweight champion David Haye’s past fights, he can throw a mean rabbit shot from time to time. He also is deadly when he’s holding and hitting in the thick of things. I don’t think Haye tries to throw rabbit punches, but he shouldn’t be allowed to get away with shots that go off course and land to the back of Wladimir’s head either.

On July 2nd, Haye is facing by far his best opponent of his life against IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko in Germany. Let’s be real about this: Haye doesn’t have the size, he doesn’t have the boxing skills and he doesn’t have full arsenal of punches to win.

Heck, Haye doesn’t have home advantage. In every aspect that you can think of Haye is out of his class. But in two different areas Haye has a huge advantage and that’s with his sometimes tendency to slip in rabbit punches and with his holding and hitting. Of course, Haye would never try to do any of these things; it just happens in the heat of the moment. But with that said, I really don’t think those things are going to fly for this fight with Wladimir. It’s too important of a fight, and it’s not going be held in Haye’s neck of the woods.

If Haye goes rabbit crazy in the first few rounds, I honestly think we may see Haye get quickly disqualified by the referee, especially if Wladimir is badly hurt with one of the rabbit shots. If you look at Haye’s fights against Monte Barrett and John Ruiz, Haye seemed to hurt both of them badly with rabbit punches. I think Haye should have been disqualified for the rabbit punch he tagged Ruiz with in the 1st round of their fight where Ruiz was bent over the ropes with his back exposed to Haye.

In Haye’s last fight against Audley Harrison, you saw Haye throwing a rabbit shot when trying to finish Harrison off. You also saw Haye slip his arm around the neck of Harrison and tag him while holding onto him. That’s called holding and hitting and it’s not allowed. The referee didn’t penalize or stop the action, which is sad because I think Harrison should have been given 5 minutes to recover once he got clipped in the back of the head and held while being punched. At the very least, I think Haye should have lost two points. But given how hurt Harrison was, I would have preferred that Haye be disqualified because we can’t know what the effects where from the holding and hitting and the rabbit punches.

I’m really hoping Haye doesn’t throw rabbit punches against Wladimir on July 2nd, but I don’t know. Wladimr likes to clinch and Haye seems to really go off when an opponent clinches with him. Once he’s clinched, it’s like a green light for Haye to start throwing punches, and unfortunately there may be some shots that could land behind Wladimir’s head during these occasions. This is why I hope the referee Genaro Rodriguez has got his eyes wide open to the rabbit shots and is ready to quickly disqualify Haye if/when he does this. You can’t have a fighter breaking rules, especially serious ones. Can you imagine if Wladimir were to come out and start kicking Haye in the groin over and over. Of course, Wladimir would be disqualified. The same goes for throwing rabbit punches and holding and hitting. I don’t care if Haye isn’t actually trying to do this. If he lands rabbit punches, he should be disqualified if he lands more than one or if he badly hurts Wladimir.