By William Mackay: American promoter Don King was less than impressed with the performance from former World Boxing Association (WBA) heavyweight champion David Haye in his embarrassing one-sided 12 round decision loss to IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko last July. King, who just turned 80, didn’t like the way that Haye fought so passively against the big 6’6″ Wladimir. King says he wouldn’t have fought that way had he been his promoter.

Here is what King had to say about Haye, and the Klitschkos in an interview by Jeff Powell at the Daily Mail: “The Klitschkos, who are good big men, are more champions of Germany, than of the world and your David Haye was a horrible disappointment against Wladimir. Haye would never have fought that feebly if he had been with me. He had the charisma and style to revive the heavyweight boxing, but, in a stadium full of Germans, he became one of many fighters I’ve known who were afraid to hit the white man. The least he could have done was go down fighting. I don’t think his confidence can ever recover.”

I think King has badly overestimated Haye’s talent based on wins over a handful of older heavyweights. Haye never stood a chance against Wladimir no matter how bravely he fought. He was simply too small and facing a guy with much better boxing ability and experience. Wladimir’s size made it all but impossible for Haye to win. Had he come aggressive like King probably wanted him to, it would have led to a knockout loss. The problem Haye had was that he’s basically a cruiserweight who never really fought anyone but a few limited guys. Haye never faced the real quality cruiserweights that came after him. And when Haye did move up in weight to the heavyweight division, he was matched even softer than he was at cruiserweight.

Let’s face it, Haye was more of a mirage than the real thing. I would have liked to have seen what he could have become had he been matched against really cruiserweights like Steve Cunningham, Tomasz Adamek and Marco Huck, to name just a few, and then matched against a stack of quality heavyweights before taking on Wladimir. Unfortunately, the best guys Haye fought at cruiserweight was Jean Marc Mormeck and Enzo Maccarinelli, and the top guys he fought at heavyweight were Nikolay Valuev, John Ruiz, Monte Barrett and Audley Harrison. Haye was matched soft and the result was he was hopefully out of his depth when he finally had to fight a good fighter in Wladimir. This is what you get when you cherry pick opponents. It stunts fighter’s growth when they do that.

King is wrong about the Klitschkos being more champions of Germany than the world. I mean, why aren’t they champions of the world? I’m not sure what King means by that. Does he mean they’re not charismatic enough to be champions of the world or does he mean they’re not as good as some of the other heavyweights? There isn’t anyone they can’t beat in the world, so I guess that means they’re champions of the world. You could put Valuev, Haye, Alexander Povetkin, Ruslan Chagaev, Ray Austin, Odlanier Solis, Chris Arreola or any other top heavyweight in with the Klitschkos and the Klitschkos will win. I think that makes them champions of the world. But if King means they’re not charismatic champions, then he’s right. They’re not great talkers like some of the heavyweights of the past nor are they as charismatic as David Haye. But they are a lot better fighters than him and that’s all that counts.