By William Mackay: Former WBA heavyweight champion David Haye (25-2, 23 KO’s) finally came out of hiding and said he’s interested in delaying his retirement to fight either IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko or his brother WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko. Either one is fine by Haye, and it’s understandable because he can make big money against both fighters.

Speaking with German news publication BILD, Haye said “If I am given a rematch against Wladimir, which I do believe I will, or Vitali will fight me, I will postpone my retirement for six months. I’ve considered everything after talking to my family and meeting with Lennox Lewis in Jamaica. Lewis gave me some tips on how to beat Vitali, just like he did in 2003. I will keep my finders crossed Klitschko wins [in his fight against Tomasz Adamek tonight]. I want him to clean up this Polish plum Adamek and retain his ttle, so that he will fight me. Vitali should give me the chance, if he dares. He is supposed to have a dangerous punch, which I doubt.”

This is a surprise, because Haye up to this point has shown zero interest in wanting to fight Vitali and now he’s had a complete change of mind about the subject. It could be that he’s finally come to terms with the fact that Wladimir won’t be fighting him until his brother Vitali gets a shot. Vitali says it’s his turn and he wants to improve on the performance that Wladimir made by knocking Haye out. Wladimir easily defeated Haye by a 12 round decision last July. Since then, Haye has been more or less silent, giving few interviews and only briefly asking Wladimir for a rematch, which was promptly refused.

Oddly enough, Haye has a different take on his loss to Wladimir, saying “Wladimir couldn’t put me down and he had the referee, judges and fans on his side. I had no real chance.”

Haye is correct that the fans were largely on Wladimir’s side, but what does he expect? The fight was in Germany where Wladimir lives and fights most of the time. Of course the fans are going to be solidly behind him. But the referee was fair. He wasn’t pulling Haye off of Wladimir or interrupting the action to prevent Haye from doing anything. Haye obviously is referring to the knockdown that he suffered in the 11th when he flopped to the canvas and the referee ruled it a knockdown instead of what Haye wanted, a another point taken away from Wladimir for pushing Haye down. Wladimir had previously lost a point for pushing Haye down in the 7th after Haye flopped to the canvas. But what happened after that was a continuation of Haye’s dropping to the canvas at the slightest contact from Wladimir. It became clear after awhile that Haye was trying to get additional points and/or a disqualification of Wladimir.

But as far the judges go, of course they scored the fight correctly. Wladimir deserved the decision, not Haye. It’s hard to believe that Haye thinks the scoring wasn’t right for the fight. It would be interesting to know whether he thinks he should have won or if he thought it should have been tighter scoring.

Haye finished with this comment about Vitali: “Vitali is 40 and will stop at some point. For his final, there is no opponent better than me. And I would send him into retirement but without his belt.”

It looks like Haye is homing in on Vitali, which is what his promoter Richard Schaefer originally wanted Haye to fight instead of the much more mobile Wladimir. Haye ignored Schaefer’s advice and took on Wladimir and was unable to deal with Wladimir’s movement, athleticism, size, reach and jab. It was a terrible mismatch from the word go and Haye never did make the needed adjustments to try and win.