By Scott Gilfoid: In something has to make you question British heavyweight David Haye’s motives for making a comeback, he is already looking past his next opponent Mark De Mori (30-1-2, 26 KOs) towards a hoped for clash against British/Commonwealth heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua in 2016. Haye faces De Mori next month on January 16th at the O2 Arena in London, UK.
Haye, 35, says he’d like to fight the unbeaten 6’6”, 245lb Joshua by the summer of 2016 if possible. This would mean that Haye would likely only have time for his one tune-up fight against the 33-year-old De Mori before he’d go straight into a clash against Joshua in the summer.
Some boxing fans might see Haye’s rush to get the Joshua fight as a sign that he’s just looking for a quick payday before disappearing from the sport for another two to three years like we saw after Haye’s fight against Dereck Chisora in 2012.
“I think definitely in the summer or towards the end of the year, if that is a fight that Anthony Joshua would want, then it is a fight that can be made,” Haye said to skysports.com.
The question is why is Haye in such a rush to fight Joshua? If Haye were serious about his comeback, then wouldn’t it make sense for him to slowly work his way up to the bigger fights instead of just jumping into them after one tune-up fight against the little known De Mori? Haye says he’s coming back because he wants to win a world title. However, when you see Haye just immediately wanting to fight Joshua instead of working his way back slowly to get ranked in the top 15 in order to eventually get a world title shot, it makes you wonder whether Haye is serious about his comeback.
“I’ve got my fight against Mark de Mori lined up but once that is out of the way, then we can talk about it,” Haye said about a fight against Joshua. “I think he probably needs one or two more fights before he would be ready for someone on my level but if he wants to do that before, let’s go for it.”
I guess we are going to see either Haye jump into a fight against Joshua after Haye’s fight against De Mori or perhaps after one more fight. I don’t think that would be the smartest thing for Haye to do if he’s serious about his comeback. But then again, if Haye is just looking to comeback for a quick payday before disappearing again for a long stretch of time, then a quick payday fight against Joshua makes all the sense in the world. I mean, I believe it’s kind of stupid to take the payday right away rather than building it up over time, but to each his own.
If Haye were able to let the fight with Joshua marinate until 2018, I think it would be a much bigger payday for him. Nevertheless, that would require that Haye stay busy and win all of his fights in 2016 and 2017 for him to get to a big money fight against Joshua in 2018. I think Haye would be careful with his matchmaking to ensure that he only faces guys that he knows he can beat so that he can could get to his eventual payday fight against Joshua.
However, the problem is Haye would need to be able to stay healthy enough to make it through two years of fighting without having frequent postponed and/or cancelled fights due to various injuries. I am not sure that Haye can do that. I have doubts whether Haye will be able to stay healthy for long without suffering some kind of debilitating injury that keeps him out of the ring for a prolonged period. As such, maybe it is a good thing if Haye cashes out with a Joshua fight right now rather than letting it build for a couple of years so that he can get a huge payday.
“If I tag Anthony Joshua, can he take my power?” Haye said.
I do not think Haye is big enough or aggressiveness enough to get close enough to Joshua to land his shots. The 5’11” Mike Tyson was able to do well against taller heavyweights by using head movement to work his way into range to land his big shots, but Tyson was fearless. If you look at how Haye fought against the 6’6” Wladimir Klitschko in their fight four years ago in 2011, Haye looked timid like he didn’t want to get hit by Klitschko.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH8_lMbE5U8
Yeah, Haye could have probably knocked Wladimir out if he had fought aggressively, but the fact of the matter is he did not. Since that fight is the only one we have to go on in predicting how Haye would do against Joshua, I think it is safe to say Haye vs. Joshua would be a dud of a fight. I do not think that Haye would even try to win. I think he would run around on the outside all night long and just try to survive for 12 rounds.
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