By Scott Gilfoid: David Haye is now giving advice to unbeaten British/Commonwealth heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua (15-0, 15 KOs) ahead of his title fight against IBF heavyweight champion Charles Martin (23-0-1, 21 KOs) next month on April 9 on Sky Box Office at the O2 Arena in London, UK.
After learning that Joshua is talking about wanting to box the big 6’5” southpaw Martin rather than fight in his usual style of slugging it out, Haye says he sees that as a bad plan for Joshua.
Haye thinks that Joshua would be better off if he goes out and immediately jumps on the 29-year-old Martin from the 1st round to try and take him out quickly like Joshua has done with all of his opponents. In other words, Haye wants Joshua to bum rush Martin, even though that fighting style almost got him knocked out in his last fight against Dillian Whyte.
“Get this one out of the way early,” said Haye via Facebook. “I heard you do an interview saying you are going to box him – don’t do that, please, for me. Please don’t. If you get into a boxing match with a southpaw boxer he’s got more experience than you in boxing like that. You’ve got more experience in punching people’s heads in and knocking them out.”
I don’t know if Haye is the right person to be giving advice to Joshua. It seems to me that Joshua should be taking advice from an unbeaten talent rather than an injury prone fighter who hasn’t faced a tough opponent since his one-sided loss to Wladimir Klitschko.
I think Joshua should ask WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder what advice he would give him about the Martin fight. I’m sure Deontay would have some useful and honest advice for Joshua to follow.
If you ask me what Joshua should do, I think it’s wise for him to box from the outside against Martin. Joshua was looking pretty good in the Whyte fight when he was using his jab and boxing from the outside from rounds three though seven.
Earlier on Monday, Joshua gave Haye some hope that the two of them will fight each other in the near future by saying that he’s open to fighting Haye. This obviously planted some ideas into Haye’s head because he’s now giving Joshua advice in order to keep him unbeaten long enough for him to get his fight with him.
Some boxing fans think Haye is looking to get a big money cash out fight against Joshua, and then disappear from whence he came into another three to four-year period of inactivity.
“That’s what you’ve got to stick to. Don’t try and learn something different for this one, just get in there and rough him up early, just get him off his game and blast him out early,” said Haye. “You can do it mate, you big old lump. You can do it, I am behind you, the whole of Britain is behind you. Get this IBF title then we can make it happen.”
I think it’s a really bad idea for Joshua to follow Haye’s advice about trying to score a quick knockout against Martin. I’ve seen that style of fighting work against Joshua in the Olympics in some of his other amateur fights. When Joshua was fighting poor opponents in the amateur ranks, he did well when attacking them in an all out manner. But in his fights against quality fighters, Joshua was nailed over and over again when he tried rushing them. In the Olympics, Joshua had several controversial wins and many people, this writer included, saw Joshua losing two of his four fights in the London Olympics in 2012. If Joshua had boxed instead of slugged in the Olympics, he might have won without controversy. Instead, he lowered his head and charged straight into tough opponents Erislandy Savon and Roberto Cammarelle. I thought the scoring was ridiculous for Joshua’s fights against those two fighters and against Ukrainian fighter Ivan Dychko. I thought Joshua lost to him as well. Joshua beat him by a 13-11 score, but I had Dychko winning comfortably.
I really doubt that Haye is going to get a fight against Joshua in 2016. I think he’ll eventually get a fight against him, but I see it happening in 2017 rather than this year. Haye can make the Joshua fight much bigger if he’d starting fighting quality guys rather than hand-picked fringe contenders. Unfortunately, I doubt Haye will dare to fight a guy with a chance to beat him. I see Haye taking weak opponents until he gets a payday fight against Joshua.
Haye will be fighting on May 21 against an opponent still to be determined at the O2 Arena in London, UK. One of the candidates for the fight if 44-year-old Shannon Briggs. That fact that Briggs is one of the candidates gives you an indication of the type of quality that Haye is looking at for his next fight.
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