Haye: If Vitali doesn’t face me by summer I’ll accept that he doesn’t want to fight and I’ll retire

By Boxing News - 01/06/2013 - Comments

haye333By Scott Gilfoid: Former WBA heavyweight champion David Haye is giving WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko a deadline by this summer to show interest in a fight.

If it doesn’t happen, Haye says he’ll retire again from boxing. He doesn’t want to fight anyone in the division, even the two best heavyweights from his own country David Price and Tyson Fury. It doesn’t seem to matter that Haye would make oodles of cash if he fought those two; he only wants Vitali.

Haye said to Sky Sports News “The contracts are already agreed. Everything’s agreed. It’s just a matter of when and where. I’m more than happy to fight in Germany like I did before. I expect the fight to be in Germany. But if it’s not happened by this summer then I’ll accept the fights never going to happen. We’ve not heard from his people since Vitali fought [Dereck] Chisora.”

I think Vitali isn’t interested in the fight. I don’t know why Haye’s not getting that clue. If there was any interest on Vitali’s part, I think Haye might have turned him off with his constant badgering for a fight. Haye needed to be more subtle because he’s come across as too needy. That’s the wrong approach to take with a Klitschko.

Haye needs to shut his yap and let Vitali be the one that comes around if he’s truly interested. But Haye is just not letting up with his talking about the fight and it comes across as someone that doesn’t have other options. Haye needs to be flexible fighting other people or at least showing interest in facing other fighters. He’s totally zoned in on Vitali and I think this has scared the guy off because he might think that Haye is just looking to get a good retirement payday.

Haye went about trying to get a fight with Vitali the wrong way in my view. He needed to give Vitali space and show that he didn’t care about the fight, and then Haye needed to stay busy instead of just sitting around like someone with no options or ambitions waiting in a passive manner.

Whatever things that Haye agreed upon in contract negotiations in the pass with Vitali, I’m sure those are no longer good enough to get the fight. I think Vitali and his manager Bernd Boente will make Haye jump through some different hoops if they do decide to fight him. With Haye not being a busy fighter he won’t be in the position to say no to whatever Vitali and Boente are asking him to agree to.



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