By Scott Gilfoid: David Haye (26-2, 24 KOs) has not given up on the idea of facing IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Tyson Fury (25-0, 18 KOs) in the future. Haye says he sees Fury as being someone in the mix for a fight between them so that he can try to win Fury’s titles.
Haye has a long, long ways to go before there is any chance of him fighting Fury for his titles. Haye, 35, will be fighting #10 WBA Mark De Mori (30-1-2, 26 KOs) this Saturday night on January 16 at the O2 Arena in London, UK. If Haye beats De Mori, then he plans to fight a couple of guys in 2016 before possibly facing British/Commonwealth heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua by the end of the year.
“Hopefully he wins the rematch against Wladimir Klitschko and he can get in the mix, and I can get all the belts, basically,” Haye said to skysports.com.
It sounds like a pipe dream for Haye with him wanting to get a shot at Fury and his titles. Never the less, I think Fury might wind up giving him a shot if Haye put some wins together and defeat someone like Joshua. I would say the odds of that happening are extremely slim, but there is still a small chance.
If Haye beats all the guys he faces in 2016 and adds Joshua’s scalp to his collection, then a fight between him and Fury would be huge. If Fury still has his titles by early 2017, which I think is very doubtful, then a fight between him and Haye would be a tremendous moneymaker.
Unfortunately, I think Haye is too old, too small and too timid to beat a big heavyweight like the 6’6”, 250lb Joshua. If Haye faces Joshua this year, he will lose and lose badly in my view. Once Haye loses to Joshua, then any chance that he ever had for a fight against Fury will have gone out the window entirely. I mean, why would Fury waste his time fighting Joshua’s leftovers? Once Haye gets a nice payday in losing to Joshua in 2016, I see Haye going back into a life of leisure and inactivity until he has a great need to get back inside the ring.
For Haye’s sake, he should not wait another 3 ½ years before he makes another comeback like he did this time. Haye will be almost 39-years-old if he disappears for that amount of time and comes back. I cannot see an old guy like that amounting to anything in the heavyweight division. Heck, I cannot even see the 35-year-old Haye doing anything right now other than beating De Mori and some obscure heavyweights before losing to Joshua.
“I’m hoping I’m back to my best and then give it a couple of fights,” Haye said. “He’s [Joshua] got a couple of fights lined up against some European fighters, so hopefully by the end of the year, that fight will have matured into one of the biggest all-British clashes.”
Well, if Haye wants to get to his Joshua payday fight, then I would advise him to steer clear of any of the decent heavyweights in the division. The problem that Haye has is that the heavyweight division has become much better than the gawd awful fighters that permeated the division when Haye was fighting in the past at heavyweight.
If Haye is going to be cherry picking heavyweights from the bottom of the pack in his comeback, I still think he’s going to have problems because he’s likely going to be fighting younger guys. Haye did a good job of fighting a slightly older fighter in 33-year-old De Mori, who arguably shouldn’t even be ranked in the top 15 at heavyweight. That must have taken Haye a long time to scout out De Mori.
I would venture to guess that De Mori is the weakest heavyweight in the top 15 in the entire division. I can’t think of heavyweight ranked in the top 15 that is more vulnerable that De Mori. That tells me that Haye is being very, very careful in who he faces in his comeback. If he gets past De Mori, then I see Haye fighting someone along the same lines as him but obviously slightly better because I see De Mori as being the true bottom of the top 15.
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