By Eric Thomas: Former heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis feels that WBA heavyweight champion David Haye fought the wrong fight against IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko last weekend. Lewis says he would have liked to have seen Haye get closer to Wladimir and throw more shots.

It’s easier said than done, though, because Wladimir backed away each time Haye would come forward to land his shots, making it difficult for Haye to land more than one punch at a time. Wladimir used his long reach to steer Haye around like a little bull, and there’s not much that could be done about that unless Haye wanted to get inside and fight it out with Wladimir.

Haye has never been an inside fighter during his career, so what Lewis wanted Haye to do was be a different kind of fighter than he was in the past. At 30, Haye is pretty well set in his ways and even if his trainer Adam Booth has trained Haye to fight on the inside against Wladimir it’s unlikely that he would have been able to do this.

Lewis said this to ringtv.com: “It was a vallient display but I think the game plan was really wrong. He [Haye] needed to throw more punches, he needed to get closer to Wladimir, and by getting closer he needed to take some risks. Even get real close, let him throw that right hand and actually be right in there to counter punch. Ross with the punches and then come back with his own combinations.”

That sounds good when Lewis says it but if Haye had done all those things Wladimir would have likely knocked him out, because when Haye would tag Wladimir with a good shot, the Ukrainian would come alive and start paying him back. With his longer arms, bigger frame, Wladimir was giving Haye a lot of problems. If Haye had fought more aggressive as Lewis wanted him to, it would be bad for Haye because he would have been getting a lot by Wladimir.

Lewis had picked Haye to win the fight by knockout.